North Carolina state Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton, left, speaks at a news conference about the pending election for a state Supreme Court seat on Dec. 10, 2024, on Capitol Square in Raleigh, N.C.Gary D. Robertson/AP
The Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the state election board from certifying the victory of one of the court’s own members—Democratic Justice Allison Riggs. In doing so, the state’s highest court laid the groundwork for potentially overturning the election and handing the seat to Riggs’ GOP challenger.
Riggs leads the race by 734 votes after two recounts. But her opponent, appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin, has challenged the eligibility of 60,000 voters. He claims that ballots were wrongly counted from people who submitted incomplete voter registration records, but his list of challenged ballots includes many lawful voters—including Riggs’ own parents.
The state election board rejected Griffin’s protests and was set to certify the election on Friday, but Republicans on the state supreme court, who have a 5-2 majority, blocked that from happening for at least two weeks while they consider Griffin’s motion to reverse the election outcome. The state election board had asked a federal court to step in and resolve the matter so that it could certify the results, but a Trump-appointed federal judge on Monday remanded the case to the state supreme court. The state election board appealed that ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the state supreme court issued its ruling before the federal appeals court could act.
Democratic state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls dissented from that decision. “The standard for a temporary stay has not been met here, where there is no likelihood of success on the merits and the public interest requires that the Court not interfere with the ordinary course of democratic processes as set by statute and the state constitution,” she wrote.
Democrats have expressed alarm that Republicans on the state supreme court could take the extraordinary step of overturning the election of one of its Democratic members and in so doing use their power to expand their partisan majority.
“Do I have fear? Absolutely,” Democratic Party state chair Anderson Clayton said at a press conference in December. “What’s happening in North Carolina is sinister, and it will have a chilling effect on our democracy and our country if they’re able to get away with what they’re trying to achieve.”
At the same event, Melissa Price Kromm, a longtime pro-democracy activist whose daughter Ella is on the list of challenged voters, called the effort to throw out 60,000 votes “a nonviolent version of January 6.”
Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm is involved in the case, wrote on Bluesky Tuesday that “the GOP is mounting the largest, most brazen post-election disenfranchisement effort since Trump’s frivolous litigation in 2020. This time, however, they may get away with it.”
The race has national significance because Riggs’ victory would give Democrats a shot at retaking the court’s majority after 2028. That would allow them to oversee the state’s redistricting process in 2031. That is particularly consequential because the current majority on the court upheld heavily gerrymandered maps drawn by the Republican-controlled state legislature that allowed Republicans to pick up three US House seats in November—just enough to maintain control of the chamber and ensure one-party rule in DC.
