Democratic State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs speaks to supporters in Raleigh.Makiya Seminera/AP
Six months after the November election, Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin finally conceded to Democratic Justice Allison Riggs on Wednesday after his unprecedented effort to throw out thousands of votes and overturn Riggs’ win was rejected by a federal court.
Two recounts affirmed Riggs’ 734-vote margin of victory after the election, but Griffin, an appeals court judge, refused to concede and challenged the eligibility of more than 65,000 voters. He presented no evidence of illegal voting, but two GOP-dominated courts in North Carolina—the state of appeals and state Supreme Court—green-lit his scheme to throw out enough votes to potentially reverse Riggs’ win.
On Monday, however, federal district court Judge Richard Myers, who was appointed by Donald Trump, overruled the state courts in North Carolina and ordered the state board of election to certify Riggs’ election. “You establish the rules before the game,” he wrote. “You don’t change them after the game is done.”
Riggs celebrated the ruling in a statement: “After millions of dollars spent, more than 68,000 voters at risk of losing their votes, thousands of volunteers mobilized, hundreds of legal documents filed, and immeasurable damage done to our democracy, I’m glad the will of the voters was finally heard, six months and two days after Election Day. It’s been my honor to lead this fight–even though it should never have happened.”
“This is a righteous victory for democracy and a clear defeat of political gamesmanship,” added DNC Chair Ken Martin. “For 200 days, Republicans in North Carolina sought to overturn the will of the people, hijack a state Supreme Court seat, and systematically undermine basic faith in our elections.”
Even though he was ultimately unsuccessful, Griffin’s six-month effort to overturn the election did tremendous damage to the democratic process.
Riggs’ victory maintains the 5–2 Republican majority on the state Supreme Court. But it gives Democrats a shot at retaking the court before the critical 2030 redistricting cycle, when the court could oversee new legislative maps. That’s one reason the race was so hotly contested. “We’ve knocked over the first domino that we need to for Democrats to take back the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2028,” Riggs told me after the election.
Even though Griffin was ultimately unsuccessful, his six-month effort to overturn the election did a tremendous amount of damage to the democratic process. He got much further than Trump did in 2020, convincing two state courts in North Carolina to throw out thousands of otherwise lawful votes after two recounts had affirmed Riggs’ victory and every other election from November had been certified. That will go a long way toward making election subversion the norm rather than the exception, especially in states, like North Carolina, where Republicans control the top courts and election boards.
Democratic State Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls called Griffin’s attempt to steal the election “a bloodless coup.” Voting rights activists referred to it as “a nonviolent version of January 6.” Just like Trump’s effort to overturn the election inspired election deniers to seize positions of power across the country, what played out in North Carolina could embolden other losing candidates to go to extreme lengths to contest future elections.
“His effort to change the rules after an election is unprecedented,” Riggs wrote in one legal brief. “And if Judge Griffin succeeds, the implications are staggering. Rather than suing before an election to challenge rules they do not believe are valid, candidates will have an incentive to say nothing and wait to see if they win. Then if they lose, they will drag out elections through litigation for months, seeking to throw out votes until they win. Never again will North Carolina voters walk out of the voting booths knowing that their votes will count, and the court system will be flooded with lawsuits after every election seeking to challenge votes all over the State.”
Sadly, that dangerous precedent may now have been set even though Griffin ultimately lost. Republicans are getting closer and closer to achieving their ultimate goal of toppling democracy altogether.
