Justice Allison Riggs Declares Victory, Narrowly Winning Important NC Supreme Court Seat

As of Monday, November 25, more than half of North Carolina’s counties have completed the recount of ballots for the NC Supreme Court seat, and incumbent Justice Allison Riggs retained her narrow lead over challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin.

At the completion of the provisional ballot review process, Riggs’ lead had grown to more than 700 votes. This remained a razor-thin difference well within the margin which allowed the trailing candidate to call for a recount, which Griffin did.

In a statement released last Wednesday, Riggs expressed confidence that the final margin would hold up through the recount process. “Tonight, I can say with confidence that I have won my race for the North Carolina Supreme Court,” declared Riggs. “This victory shows the importance of ensuring that every voter’s voice is heard. On election night, we were down, but we knew there were plenty of absentee and provisional ballots that needed to be counted.  After all ballots were canvassed, we won by a margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.”

Griffin Challenges Ballots

In addition to the formal recount request, the Griffin campaign last week also filed 300 challenges to 60,000 ballots statewide. Some of the challenges addressed voter-specific circumstances such as felon status or death by an absentee-by-mail voter prior to election day. Those cases were referred to county boards of elections for individual review and ruling. However, most of the cases deal with generic procedural issues which were retained by the state board of elections for determination as a matter of consistent election law interpretation. 

“The state Board of Elections [SBOE] on Wednesday ordered county boards of election to research and hold hearings on whether votes were counted from people who died, people serving felony sentences, or people who were not registered. The state Board will consider the protests over incomplete registrations, overseas voters, and military and overseas voters who sent ballots without photo ID or an exception form.” 

The matters retained by the SBOE related to large categories of voter registrations which had been challenged prior to this election by unsuccessful Republican Party lawsuits. Griffin’s challenges now seek to re-litigate those decisions in the context of his loss.