The NC Supreme Court’s Partisan Majority Ruled to Steal a Court Seat their Party Lost

A partisan majority on the NC Supreme Court (NCSC) ruled on Friday to reward their party’s efforts to steal a Court seat that they lost last fall at the polls. Election loser Judge Jefferson Griffin’s campaign celebrated the theft. Meanwhile, election winner Justice Allison Riggs immediately asked the federal courts to intervene in defense of the people’s right to have their votes—not partisan judges—decide the outcome of elections in North Carolina and nationwide.

Yes, the stakes are that high. Observers around the nation are calling this a test case for partisan plans to routinely seek to overturn the results of elections they lose, by selecting groups of voters to challenge on spurious grounds after the fact of voting. 

The Ruling

In its ruling announced April 11, a bitterly divided court ruled 4-2 to simply disqualify more than 200 ballots cast by a group of American citizens who are the children of North Carolinians but have never lived in North Carolina themselves, mostly because their parents are living abroad due to military service. The Court majority’s ruling on that group of voters flew in the face of a 2011 North Carolina state law, in effect at the time of last year’s elections, allowing those citizens to vote here. 

The same 4-2 majority said that about 5,000 military and other North Carolinians living overseas will have to submit photo identification within 30 days in order to keep their votes from being disqualified after the fact. Again, that ruling was made despite the fact that North Carolina law doesn’t explicitly require those voters to show photo identification, and those voters were told by state elections officials to follow a procedure which under state rules in effect at the time of the election did not include that step.

Targeting Democratic Military, Oversea Residents’ Votes

Justice Anita Earls, one of the two dissenting Justices, filed a fiery dissent which included special criticism of the Court majority’s decision to accept a challenge to those voters, since Griffin did not challenge all such overseas voters in county tallies around the state. Instead, Griffin challenged only the overseas residents casting their ballots in just four counties—all of which are heavily Democratic-leaning counties with large universities. 

She questioned how her colleagues could justify a ruling separating the voters who did not follow a newly manufactured requirement into two groups, only one of which will be punished, based solely on what part of the state they’re from. “Explaining how that is fair, just, or consistent with fundamental legal principles is impossible, so the majority does not try,” wrote Earls. 

No Small Thing

More broadly, Earls’ dissent took aim at the Court majority’s decision to change the rules of the election months after all ballots had been cast. She wrote, “It is no small thing to overturn the results of an election in a democracy by throwing out ballots that were legally cast consistent with all election laws in effect on the day of the election. Some would call it stealing the election, others might call it a bloodless coup, but by whatever name, no amount of smoke and mirrors makes it legitimate.”

Dissenting Republican Judge

The other dissenting Justice in the Court’s rulings on Friday was Republican Justice Richard Dietz. Justice Dietz said in previous hearings that the Court should not have allowed Griffin’s case to proceed because it was seeking to change election rules after the election was over.

In their only unanimous decision, the Court’s justices ruled against Griffin’s claim that the votes of over 60,000 other voting citizens should be thrown out because state records allegedly did not contain their driver’s license or Social Security numbers. The Court reasoned that those voters were not accountable for the state’s errors. 

What’s Next?

Justice Riggs’ attorneys filed a motion in the U.S. District Court in Raleigh on Friday, asking for an order blocking the state Supreme Court’s order from going into effect. She and the NC State Board of Elections had previously indicated that they would return to federal court for relief if the state court system did not dismiss Griffin’s complaint. See more information on the background and history of this case, and why it is crucial to the future of democracy and our environment in North Carolina.