Republican Appeals Court Judge Griffin asks the NC Supreme Court to throw out votes

This story was first published by Lynn Bonner, NC Newsline
December 18, 2024

Republican Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to do what the state Board of Elections would not — throw out tens of thousands of votes on the belief that canceling them will elevate him to a seat on the same tribunal.

Griffin is seeking to toss more than 60,000 votes in his effort to unseat Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, the incumbent Democrat. Griffin is losing by 734 votes out of about 5.5 million cast.

The Board of Elections rejected his requests last week, with most of those votes falling along party lines with Democrats in the majority. 

The Board has not yet certified the results, and Griffin wants the Supreme Court to step in before it does. He asks the court to decide before Monday.

Griffin wants to throw out ballots of more than 60,000 voters he claims did not supply a driver’s license number or partial Social Security number on their registration applications. Republican lawyers in the case claim these voters are not legally registered. Many of those voters have been registered and voting for decades.

“Thousands of such ballots were unlawfully cast in the election,” Griffin’s court filing says.  “Judge Griffin anticipates that, if these unlawful ballots are excluded, he will win the election.” 

Earlier this year, a federal judge partially dismissed a Republican National Committee and NC GOP lawsuit based on this argument. Republicans were seeking to purge 225,000 voters from the rolls, or have the court force them to vote provisional ballots. 

In the Board’s written order, general counsel Paul Cox wrote that just because the numbers did not show up in the registration database doesn’t mean that the voter did not supply them. 

Moreover, state law allows voters without these numbers to register, Cox wrote. 

Griffin also wanted the Board to throw out votes by overseas voters who have never lived in North Carolina but whose parents last lived in the state. A state law passed more than a decade ago allows these voters to cast absentee ballots. State courts rejected a Republican Party lawsuit that sought to prevent the state from accepting these ballots.

In the Board’s one unanimous vote against Griffin, it said it would not reject military and civilian overseas ballots because those voters did not include photo ID. The Board’s own rule says those voters do not have to submit photos with their ballots. 

Griffin faces a Monday deadline for filing an appeal of the State Board’s decision in Superior Court. The State Board would move the case to federal court, Griffin’s Wednesday Supreme Court filing said, and he wants to avoid that. 

A full count of ballots and a machine recount showed Griffin lost by 734 votes. Griffin was still behind after a statewide hand recount of 3% of Election Day precincts and early voting sites, so he did not qualify for a full statewide hand recount.

Democrats want to win a majority on the state Supreme Court by 2031 and holding Riggs’ seat is the first step toward achieving that goal. Republicans now hold a 5-2 majority on the court. 

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