- Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin filed a motion Friday evening to return his ballot dispute with the North Carolina State Board of Elections to state court.
- Griffin also defended his request for an injunction blocking the State Board of Elections from certifying Democrat Allison Riggs as the election's winner.
- Without court action, the elections board could finalize the election result on Jan. 10.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin filed a motion Friday evening asking a federal judge to send Griffin’s legal dispute with the North Carolina State Board of Elections back to state court. Griffin also seeks an injunction blocking the elections board from certifying the results of the Nov. 5 Supreme Court election.
Without court action, the state elections board is likely to certify appointed incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs as the election winner on Jan. 10. Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million ballots cast in the fall contest. Griffin is challenging more than 60,000 ballots counted in that race. Certification of the election results would “moot” Griffin’s legal challenge.
Griffin filed paperwork on Dec. 18 asking North Carolina’s highest court to address his dispute with the elections board. The board filed paperwork the following day to remove the case to US Chief District Judge Richard Myers’ courtroom.
“At bottom, the Board’s attempted removal threatens our system of federalism,” Griffin’s lawyers wrote Friday. “This case primarily turns upon unsettled issues of state election law. And states — not the federal government — have the primary responsibility to regulate elections for state offices. But the Board has attempted to circumvent a decision by the state’s highest court by injecting a slew of inapplicable federal defenses and meritless arguments about their application solely for the purposes of obtaining federal jurisdiction. If this Court maintains jurisdiction here, that decision will only incentivize the Board to repeat these tactics in the future.”
As Myers considers whether to keep the case, or maintain jurisdiction, Griffin also asked the judge Friday to issue an injunction, which “is warranted to maintain the status quo until the appropriate court can decide this case on the merits,” according to a separate court filing.
Myers set a Friday deadline for Griffin to reply to arguments put forward Wednesday by the elections board, Riggs, and activists working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm.
The judge specifically ordered state elections officials to “show cause” why the case should not return to state court. Griffin, a state Court of Appeals judge, is the petitioner in the case.
“In this lawsuit, Petitioner makes an astonishing request: to change longstanding election rules after an election has already taken place and, by doing so, disenfranchise more than 60,000 voters — voters who followed the rules in place at the time of that election,” the elections board’s lawyers wrote Wednesday. “This requested relief confers jurisdiction on this Court several times over.”
“It squarely raises substantial federal questions under the United States Constitution, the Help America Vote Act, and other federal statutes,” the court filing continued. “Indeed, Petitioner himself asks for a judicial decree that his requested relief does not violate these statutes or the U.S. Constitution. Given this request, it is hard to envision a lawsuit that more squarely implicates federal law.”
“Federal jurisdiction is also proper because granting Petitioner’s requested relief would require the State Board of Elections to violate federal civil-rights laws,” the elections board’s lawyers argued. “Among other things, Petitioner seeks relief that would violate the National Voter Registration Act’s limits on how States may remove voters from the rolls.”
The elections board urged Myers to keep the case, or exercise jurisdiction, then deny Griffin’s requested injunction.
“Judge Griffin cannot show that he is likely to succeed in throwing out tens of thousands of votes cast by his fellow North Carolinians in compliance with official guidance,” Riggs argued in a separate brief Wednesday. “And the public interest does not favor runner-up candidates who seek to undo the will of the voters.”
On Tuesday, former Democratic congressional leaders Tom Daschle and Richard Gephardt led a group of seven former congressmen urging Myers to reject Griffin’s request to send the case back to state court.
“Without a preliminary injunction, mootness will deprive the Court of jurisdiction to consider any of the issues presented in this matter,” Griffin’s lawyers wrote in support of their motion for an injunction. “A preliminary injunction, however, will simply stay the Board’s hand. … The Board will not be harmed by that injunction — indeed, North Carolina law contemplates delays in election certifications while judicial review is pending.”
“By contrast, Judge Griffin will be irreparably harmed absent the injunction: his protests will be mooted, and he will lose the election,” the court filing continued. “And preventing the Board’s certification from mooting Judge Griffin’s challenges to unlawful ballots will serve the important public interests in election integrity and the franchise, among others.”
Myers issued a Dec. 20 order denying Griffin’s request for a temporary restraining order in the case.
The same judge oversees a lawsuit the North Carolina Democratic Party filed on Dec. 6 dealing with the same ballot challenges Griffin addresses in his complaint. Griffin intervened as a defendant in that case.
Griffin’s complaint highlighted three categories of election protests: voters who registered without providing a driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number, voters who never have lived in North Carolina, and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification.
“In response to these protests, the State Board and the opposing candidate, Justice Allison Riggs, have claimed that Judge Griffin is seeking a retroactive change in the election laws. That flatly mischaracterizes the timeline,” the court filing explained. “Our registration statutes required drivers license or social security numbers back in 2004. Our state constitution has imposed a residency requirement since 1776. And photo identification has been required for absentee voting since at least 2018. The laws that should have governed this election were, therefore, established long before this election. The State Board simply chose to break the law.”