- A federal judge is ordering the North Carolina State Board of Elections to explain why he should keep a case involving a dispute over the recent state Supreme Court election.
- The elections board must "show cause" by Jan. 1 why the case should not return to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
- Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin seeks a court order blocking the state elections board from certifying the result of Griffin's election against Democrat Allison Riggs. Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million ballots cast statewide.
A federal judge is ordering the North Carolina State Board of Elections to explain why he should keep a case involving a dispute over the recent state Supreme Court election. The board must comply with the order by Jan. 1.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin filed a complaint on Dec. 18 asking North Carolina’s high court to block certification of the election pitting Griffin against appointed incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs. The elections board removed the case to federal court the following day.
Griffin filed a motion Monday seeking a preliminary injunction against the elections board. He also asked for an expedited schedule to address the injunction.
US Chief District Judge Richard Myers issued an order Thursday granting Riggs’ request to intervene in the case. Myers also permitted intervention by two activist groups and three individual voters working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm.
Myers granted Griffin’s motion for expedited briefing in the case. The elections board and intervenors “shall file responses” to Griffin’s request for an injunction by Jan. 1.
“As part of its response, the NCSBE is ordered to SHOW CAUSE why this matter should not be remanded to the North Carolina Supreme Court for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction,” Myers wrote.
The judge set a Jan. 3 deadline for Griffin to reply to arguments put forward by elections officials, Riggs, and the Elias plaintiffs.
Griffin hopes to block the elections board from declaring Riggs as the winner of the Nov. 5 election. Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast statewide.
A lawsuit from Griffin aims to block the elections board from counting more than 60,000 ballots targeted as “unlawful.” The board has rejected Griffin’s protests against those ballots.
A final decision on those protests is expected Friday, according to paperwork Griffin’s lawyers filed Monday. Unless Griffin secures an injunction by Jan. 9, the elections board could vote the following day to certify the election. Such a vote would “moot” Griffin’s legal challenge.
“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.”