Judge Dismisses Griffin’s Challenge, Providing a Big Win for Voting Rights
After six months of challenges and appeals by the losing candidate, Justice Allison Riggs is finally the uncontested winner of the NC Supreme Court seat that she earned at the polls last November. To prevail, she and her supporting intervenors had to overcome a relentless partisan campaign to change the rules of voting after an election their candidate lost.
“We celebrate this victory and congratulate Justice Allison Riggs – a victory that occurred over 6 months ago, was affirmed by repeated legal recounts, and reflected the will of the people of North Carolina. Judge Jefferson Griffin, four Supreme Court Justices, including Chief Justice Paul Newby, and the NC Republican Party did everything in their power to ignore the legitimate decision of the people of North Carolina by attempting to disenfranchise thousands of legal voters and steal a seat on our highest court. That is the opposite of justice, respect for the rule of law, and belief in democracy. We will not forget this, and neither should the voters of North Carolina,” said Carrie Clark, executive director of the NC League of Conservation Voters.
Who Dismissed the Challenge Matters
The end came after a Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge last week issued a sweeping rebuke of losing candidate Judge Jefferson Griffin’s attempt to engineer a tainted reversal of the results. Chief District Court Judge Richard Myers dismissed all of Griffin’s challenges as transparent attempts to disqualify selected sets of Democratic-leaning voters by adding new hurdles for counting their votes that were not in place at the time of voting. Judge Myers ordered that the NC State Board of Elections (NCSBE) certify the winner (Allison Riggs) who had been confirmed via three counts of all the ballots legally cast under the rules that applied as of election day.
Griffin conceded two days later. Observers speculated that the concession came after his partisan backers decided that further appeals would risk setting a damning federal court precedent they didn’t want.
The Rules of the Game
It became clear early on that Griffin’s partisan backers had hoped instead for a model case on which other post-election challenges of losing election results could be based. The danger of that kind of damage to the entire system of free and fair elections in America was part of why this case gained such a high level of attention nationwide. By the time it ended, this contest had long since become the last uncertified result from the 2024 elections.
In his 68-page analysis and ruling, Judge Myers wrote, “You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done.” “Permitting parties to ‘upend the set rules’ of an election after the election has taken place can only produce ‘confusion and turmoil’” that “‘threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,’” he added while citing other cases.
Judge Myers also clearly defined the central questions of the case. It was about “whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals.” His answer was “no to both questions”—such actions clearly violated the Constitution’s bedrock principles of due process and equal protection under the law.
We Will Continue to Fight for Our Democracy
While the defenders of democracy and voting rights can celebrate today, we must also recognize that the next round is already underway. Advocates must get ready to monitor and challenge attempts by the new NCSBE to roll back voting rights and opportunities in the rules for next year’s elections.
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