A Republican-majority, three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the state Board of Elections to recalculate the vote totals in the state's contentious Supreme Court race. The 103-page decision overturns a trial court ruling denying Republican Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin's request to toss out tens of thousands of votes he claims are invalid.
The judges ruled 2-1, along party lines, in favor of Griffin, who recused himself from the case and lost the 2024 contest to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, by 734 votes.
"The post-election protest process preserves the fundamental right to vote in free elections 'on equal terms,'" the judges wrote in the opinion, citing legal precedent. "This right is violated when 'votes are not accurately counted [because] [unlawful] [ ] ballots are included in the election results.'"
The judges also ordered that the 60,000 voters Griffin flagged as having incomplete voter registrations and the more than 5,000 overseas and military voters Griffin flagged as failing to provide a photo ID with their absentee ballots provide missing data or identification within 15 business days from the mailing date of the notice in order for their ballots to be counted. "Never resident" voters, the judges ruled, will not have their votes counted in the election.
In a statement following the ruling, Riggs vowed to appeal the decision.
"We will be promptly appealing this deeply misinformed decision that threatens to disenfranchise more than 65,000 lawful voters and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing disappointed politicians to thwart the will of the people," Riggs said. The Democratic justice also vowed to continue to "stand up for the rights of voters in this state and stand in the way of those who would take power from the people."
Griffin's election challenge flagged three classes of ballots he argues are invalid: some 60,000 votes he says were cast by voters who did not provide or were not asked to provide their Social Security or driver's license numbers on their voter registration; another 5,500 from overseas voters who he says failed to include a copy of their voter ID with their absentee ballots; and a few hundred from inherited residence voters who have never physically lived in the state.
Tossing out these ballots, he argues, would overturn his defeat, which has been confirmed by two recounts.
Following Riggs' appeal, the case will return before the state Supreme Court, which in January sent Griffin's petitions back to the trial court for bypassing the usual procedure for filing an election challenge. Though the justices dismissed his case then, their opinion signaled an embrace of Griffin's argument.
