After spending over six months vigorously contesting his narrow loss in the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election, Jefferson Griffin conceded the race on Wednesday following a federal judge’s ruling against him.
Griffin, a Republican judge on the state Court of Appeals, lost the election to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes. But he and the state Republican Party refused to accept the results, instead embarking on an unprecedented campaign to challenge over 65,000 votes in a legal battle that has roiled the state and drawn national rebuke.
Earlier this week, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, decisively ruled against Griffin’s efforts, saying that he sought to “change the rules of the game after it had been played.”
The State Board of Elections’s final count shows Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent in the race, to be the winner, by a margin of 734 votes out of the more than 5.5 million ballots that were cast. But Judge Griffin, the North Carolina Republican Party and conservative election deniers have embarked on an extraordinary effort to wipe away that result, and throw out tens of thousands of ballots that were submitted by mail or in early voting.
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On Tuesday, the State Supreme Court blocked state officials from certifying the outcome of the race. Later this month, pending the outcome of legal battles over whether the issue should be heard in state or federal courts, the North Carolina court could decide, in effect, whether a Democrat or a Republican will hold the seat.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina has been asked to rule on a bizarre request from Jefferson Griffin, the losing Republican challenger for an Associate Justice seat on that same court. Last week, the Griffin campaign filed a request for the state’s highest court to toss out 60,000 votes, thus reversing the outcome of the election which Griffin lost. In doing so, Jefferson Griffin’s crusade against the voters of North Carolina is not only anti-democratic, but anathema to the rule of law.
Simply put, this is a grim preview of North Carolina’s political future. Should Griffin’s request be granted, North Carolina’s already threadbare democracy could be irreparably torn. Overturning the will of the voters in a valid election is a major escalation from ordinary partisan politics, and should be roundly condemned across the political spectrum.
If you’re in North Carolina and want to check if your vote is one of the votes that Jefferson Griffin is trying to disqualify, Apex Council Member Terry Mahaffey has made a tool to allow you to check: https://terrymah.github.io/challenge/
Scott Boehmer 