Griffin says elections board plans to defy court in disputed contest

Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin argues in a new court filing that the North Carolina State Board of Elections plans to defy a court order in an ongoing election dispute. Griffin challenges the board’s plan to consider no more than 1,675 targeted ballots from last fall’s statewide election.

Griffin, a state Appeals Court judge, trails Justice Allison Riggs, an appointed incumbent Democrat, by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast in the November 2024 Supreme Court election. Griffin has asked state courts to consider throwing out 65,000 or more ballots challenged as unlawful.

A state Supreme Court order Friday rejected Griffin’s challenge of more than 60,000 voters with incomplete registration records. Now Griffin and the elections board dispute the number of ballots still subject to ongoing challenges.

Griffin’s court filings suggest more than 5,700 ballots remain in dispute. The elections board indicated in a federal court filing Tuesday that it plans to review no more than 1,675 ballots.

“The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ordered the State Board of Elections to explain how it intended to comply with this Court’s mandate,” Griffin’s lawyers wrote Wednesday in a petition to the state Appeals Court. “The State Board filed a notice explaining its intentions on 15 April 2025. In its notice, the Board explained that it intends to defy this Court’s mandate rather than comply with it.”

US Chief District Judge Richard Myers ordered elections officials last weekend to follow the state Appeals Court’s April 4 order in the case, as modified by the state Supreme Court one week later. Griffin contends that the state elections board indicated “it will violate” the April 4 “mandate” in multiple ways.

“First, the State Board will instruct only a single county to offer a cure process to overseas voters who failed to present identification — despite protests being filed in six counties,” Griffin’s lawyers wrote. “Second, the State Board will only address 266 Never Residents named in Judge Griffin’s protests — despite this Court ordering county boards to remove all Never Residents. Third, the State Board has created an elaborate cure process for the Never Residents — even though this Court clearly forbade a cure process for Never Residents.”

“The Board’s intended defiance requires immediate redress by this Court,” the court filing continued. “This Court should issue a writ of mandamus to the State Board, ordering it to faithfully comply with the mandate.”

“Procedurally, this Court could also enter an order clarifying its mandate. Either way, this Court should leave the State Board no room to circumvent the Court’s directions,” Griffin’s lawyers argued.

Griffin’s legal team forwarded Wednesday’s state Appeals Court filing to Myers.

As the Republican candidate sought a new order from North Carolina’s Appeals Court, Riggs asked a federal Appeals Court to step back into the legal dispute. Riggs seeks a stay and injunction from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. It would block Myers’ orders endorsing state court plans for addressing Griffin’s ongoing ballot challenges.

“Two months ago, this Court exercised its discretion to abstain from deciding the federal issues in this case while the North Carolina courts resolved unsettled questions of state law,” Riggs’ lawyers wrote to the Richmond, Virginia-based federal Appeals Court. “The North Carolina courts used the opportunity to issue the ‘most impactful election-related court decision our state has seen in decades.’”

“That decision permits a losing candidate to bring a post-election lawsuit intended to overturn the results by retroactively disenfranchising voters,” the court filing continued. “Rather than obviate the need for federal court review, the North Carolina courts endorsed a state-law remedy that ‘cries out’ for ‘a decisive rejection of this sort of post hoc judicial tampering in election results.’”

“This stay and injunction are necessary to ensure that this Court has time to ‘address the federal constitutional and other federal issues the Board raised in removing the case,’” Riggs’ lawyers wrote. “To allow the state-law remedy to go into effect while those federal-law issues remain unresolved would be inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution and this Court’s mandate.”

Myers refused Tuesday to grant a stay of his recent orders in multiple lawsuits linked to the state Supreme Court election dispute. He also rejected requests for mandatory injunctions in the case.

“The court does not find that initiation of a cure process ordered by the North Carolina Court of Appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court, on its own, constitutes a form of irreparable harm because that process cannot result in ‘massive ex post disenfranchisement,’ unless the Board of Elections takes further action at the conclusion of that process,” Myers wrote. “And the court has expressly prohibited the Board of Elections from certifying the results of the election until the federal constitutional issues in these consolidated matters have been resolved.”

Riggs, the Elias plaintiffs, the LWVNC plaintiffs, and the North Carolina Democratic Party all have asked the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals to block Myers’ ruling.

The state Supreme Court agreed unanimously Friday to reject Griffin’s challenge of more than 60,000 ballots cast by people who appeared to have incomplete voter registration records.

The court split, 4-2, on two other sets of ballot challenges. Justices upheld the state Appeals Court’s decision to throw out votes from voters who never have lived in North Carolina. The Supreme Court also endorsed the Appeals Court’s plan to give overseas voters time to provide evidence of photo identification to have their ballots counted.

The Appeals Court had ordered elections officials to give overseas voters 15 business days to complete that task. The state Supreme Court extended that window to 30 calendar days.

The total number of ballots affected by Griffin’s protests has been unclear as the process has moved forward. In an earlier stage of the case, Myers identified more than 5,500 ballots belonging to overseas voters who provided no photo ID. He also spelled out 267 votes from “never residents.” The State Board of Elections believes the total number of ballots affected by state court orders is no larger than 1,675.

The state Supreme Court’s decision modified a 2-1 ruling on April 4 from the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

The Appeals Court would have given more than 60,000 voters with incomplete voter registration information 15 days to verify their information and have their votes counted. The Supreme Court took up that issue “for the limited purpose of reversing the decision of the Court of Appeals.”

“The board’s inattention and failure to dutifully conform its conduct to the law’s requirements is deeply troubling,” the Supreme Court majority wrote. “Nevertheless, our precedent on this issue is clear. Because the responsibility for the technical defects in the voters’ registration rests with the Board and not the voters, the wholesale voiding of ballots cast by individuals who subsequently proved their identity to the Board by complying with the voter identification law would undermine the principle that ‘this is a government of the people, in which the will of the people — the majority — legally expressed, must govern.’”

The Appeals Court also would have granted 15 days for overseas voters to provide photo ID and have their votes counted. The Supreme Court addressed the issue “for the limited purpose of expanding the period to cure deficiencies arising from lack of photo identification or its equivalent from fifteen business days to thirty calendar days after the mailing of notice.”

Appellate judges called on state elections officials to discard votes cast by people who never have lived in North Carolina. “[T]he Court of Appeals held that allowing individuals to vote in our state’s non-federal elections who have never been domiciled or resided in North Carolina or expressed an intent to live in North Carolina violated the plain language of Article VI, Section 2(1) of the North Carolina Constitution,” according to the Supreme Court order. The high court did not alter that decision.

Riggs was recused from the case. Justice Anita Earls, a fellow Democrat, agreed with the decision to count more than 60,000 ballots challenged based on incomplete voter registration. She criticized the rest of the majority’s opinion.

“The majority is blatantly changing the rules of an election that has already happened and applying that change retroactively to only some voters, understanding that it will change the outcome of a democratic election,” Earls wrote. “That decision is unlawful for many reasons, including because: 1) it is inconsistent with this Court’s longstanding precedent, 2) contrary to equitable principles that require parties to bring their claims in a timely manner, 3) contrary to equal protection concerns, 4) violative of due process requirements, and 5) contrary to state constitutional provisions vesting the right to elect judges in the qualified voters of this state, not the judge’s colleagues.”

Earls labeled the decision a “judicial coup.”

Justice Richard Dietz, a Republican, also issued a partial dissent. “I expected that, when the time came, our state courts surely would embrace the universally accepted principle that courts cannot change election outcomes by retroactively rewriting the law.”

“I was wrong,” Dietz wrote.

The state elections board had rejected all of Griffin’s ballot challenges. A Wake County Superior Court judge upheld the board’s decision in a series of Feb. 7 orders.

Appeals Court Judges John Tyson and Fred Gore, both Republicans, supported the court’s April 4 decision. Judge Tobias Hampson, a Democrat, dissented.

Riggs continues to serve on the state Supreme Court during the legal battle. Griffin continues to serve on the Appeals Court.