The North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice seat remains the only statewide race in the country that hasn’t been certified.
Citizens rallied in protest of Jefferson Griffin’s efforts to discard tens of thousands of ballots on Feb. 22, 2025 at Fort Totten Park in New Bern, NC.
NC Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin ran for the justice seat in November 2024 and lost to the incumbent Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes, according to the NC State Board of Elections website. Unsatisfied with the results, Griffin filed several election protests with the State Board of Elections and after two recounts, the results remained the same.
According to court documents, he alleged that ballots were cast by people who weren’t legally registered to vote due to incomplete voter registrations. He claimed ballots were cast by overseas citizens who weren’t NC residents and did not live in the US. He alleged military members and overseas citizens did not provide a photocopy of their ID Exception Form or photo ID.
The Board of Elections determined “that the protests did not substantially comply with the service requirements and did not establish probable cause to believe that a violation of election law or irregularity or misconduct occurred in the protested elections.” The protests were dismissed.
Jefferson Griffin also alleged that people voted while serving felony sentences, ballots were cast by people who were deceased on Election Day and ballots were cast by voters whose registration were denied or removed.
The NCSBE dismissed the protests after concluding that the law requires a person to provide adequate notice to voters when their votes are challenged. “That was not done for all the voter-eligibility protests addressed in this decision.” It was noted that even if they received adequate notice, the “protests failed to establish substantial evidence to believe that a violation of the election law or other irregularity or misconduct that affected the outcome of the election occurred in those contests for the reasons outlined in this decision.”
Judge Griffin appealed the Board of Elections decisions by petitioning the NC Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition on Dec. 18, 2024, according to court documents. The writ would prevent a lower court from proceeding in a pending matter, according to Ch. 35: Appeals, Post-Convictions Litigation, and Writs published here.
He alleged “5,509 overseas voters who purportedly violated state law by not providing photo ID; 267 voters who were born abroad and have never resided in this state; and 60,273 voters who failed to provide required information when they registered to vote,” according to an order dated Jan. 22, 2025.
He asked the Supreme Court to prohibit the Board of Elections from counting over 65,000 ballots that he challenged. He requested a stay to block the board from certifying Allison Riggs as the winner. The petition was renewed on Jan. 7, 2025.
The NCSBE removed the petitions to the US District Court for the Eastern District of NC for judicial review and the following day, Griffin “split the claims into parts and filed three petitions for judicial review in this (Supreme) Court,” according to the brief.
Jefferson Griffin asked for Griffin I to be moved back to the state Supreme Court. That same day, the court decided to move Griffin II from the US District Court to the Superior Court of Wake County.
The Supreme Court ordered a temporary stay and dismissed the petition for writ of prohibition so the Wake County Superior Court could proceed with judicial review.
Justice Earls dissented in part, because it leaves the stay in place. She said the court effectively ordered a preliminary injunction that will keep the NCSBE from certifying the race for the Supreme Court seat.
She said the temporary stay prevents the Wake County Superior Court from deciding whether Jefferson Griffin “is likely to succeed on the merits and whether a stay is justified—a decision which state law vests in that court specifically,” Earls said.
“Faithfully executing the law here means that the trial court should…be deciding whether a stay is warranted. If, however, the court still believes that allowing the stay to continue is not a reflection of the likelihood of success on the merits, that opens a different Pandora’s Box. It means that an injunction to prevent the certification of an elected official is warranted any time a losing candidate decides to appeal an adverse decision on an election protest from the State Board of Elections to the Superior Court. If any losing candidate can make any sort of argument about votes in the election, no matter how frivolous, and automatically receive a court-ordered stay on appeal, preventing the winning candidate from being certified, nothing stops litigious losers from preventing duly elected persons from taking office for months or longer,” she said.
Earls said it would incentivize “costly litigation of baseless claims for those candidates who can afford it, undermines confidence in our democratic system, and has no support in existing law.”
She said it would set courts up “to be the arbiters of election outcomes instead of voters and weakens faith in the democratic processes of this state. In seeking to invalidate the votes of over 60,000 voters, Judge Griffin cannot identify a single voter who fraudulently cast a ballot without being duly qualified under the laws of this state to do so.”
On Feb. 7, the Wake County District Court heard Griffin’s “Incomplete Voter Registration,” “Never Resident” and “Lack of Photo Identification for Overseas Voters” protests. The court concluded that the State Board of Elections decision “was not in violation of constitutional provisions, was not in excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency, was made upon lawful procedure, and was not affected by other error of law.” Judge Pittman ruled that the NCSBE’s decision “should be, and hereby is, affirmed.”
The Board of Elections petitioned the Supreme Court for a discretionary review prior to determination by the NC Court of Appeals on Feb. 20. The court voted 4-2 to deny the request with Republicans Chief Justice Paul Newby, Associate Justices Philip Berger, Jr., Tamara Barringer and Trey Allen concurring. Democrat Justices Anita Earls and Republican Justice Richard Dietz dissented. Democrat Justice Allison Riggs was recused from voting.
Justice Earls said Judge Griffin’s opposition to bypass the petition asserts that the Supreme Court shouldn’t hear the case because the court might be split 3-3, which would leave the lower court’s ruling as the final ruling.
“In other words, he asks us not to hear the case because he might lose. Such outcome-determined reasoning has no place in a court committed to the rule of law,” Earls said.
In a filing on Feb. 25, Griffin accused the state elections board of breaking “the law for decades while refusing to correct its errors.”
A Brief by Interventor Allison Riggs, addresses Judge Griffin’s previous claims.
It states, Judge Griffin did not serve affected voters with a “copy of the relevant protest, as required by state law. Instead, he sent thousands of junk-mail postcards with a QR code and an ambiguous warning that the recipient’s vote ‘may be affected.’ Not only did that postcard violate state law but it was constitutionally deficient as it failed to give North Carolinians adequate notice that their fundamental right to vote was being directly challenged.”
“While the NC Administrative Code provides that these voters are ‘not required to submit a photocopy of acceptable photo identification.’” It says, Griffin argued that the rule conflicts with NC statutory law, the brief states.
It says the actions are flawed and violate substantive and procedural due process, and voter equal protection rights.
The brief states Congress passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee in 1986 which consolidated federal laws that govern overseas voting and established a uniform system of military members, their families and civilian voters who live overseas. The UOCAVA was later amended to require states to accept a Federal Postcard Application for registration. The federal forms and instructions don’t tell voters to include a photo ID.
“The Eastern District of North Carolina concluded it had jurisdiction in Griffin I and Griffin II, but abstained, and remanded. Those remand decisions are on appeal to the Fourth Circuit and are fully briefed and argued; a final decision in those appeals is likely imminent,” according to the brief.
Justice Allison Riggs filed a motion on Feb. 25 asking the North Carolina Court of Appeals to hear the case en banc and asked for expedited consideration of the request.
Three months after the November election, citizens joined Common Cause NC, Democracy NC, Craven County NAACP and other organizations for a rally in New Bern to call for the state’s highest court to reject Jefferson Griffin’s efforts to invalidate over 60,000 ballots, which would overturn the election, according to a press release.
“Multiple recounts and careful election audits confirmed that Justice Allison Riggs won the most votes to keep her seat on the NC Supreme Court. But rather than concede and respect the will of voters, losing candidate Jefferson Griffin is demanding that the courts do the unthinkable: throw out the lawful ballots of 60,000 North Carolinians – with young people and Black voters challenged at higher rates by Griffin – as he outrageously tries to overturn the election,” the release says.
Find out if Jefferson Griffin is challenging your vote by visiting the NCSBE’s website here.
Food for thought:
The 65,000 ballots that Judge Jefferson Griffin alleges to have been unlawfully cast include Unaffiliated, Democrat and Republican voters. The ballots were counted in local, state and federal races that have already been certified.
By Wendy Card, Editor. Send an email with questions or comments.