NC Justice Allison Riggs Wins Her Biggest Case
NC Supreme Court candidate Griffin's scheme fails - for now
Last Wednesday, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs finally won her case against Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin — and we celebrated! It was the first positive feeling I’ve had since Kamala Harris expressed hope for humanity back in October.
But what is this?
We’re celebrating Riggs’ clear victory six months late. We’ve been through an expensive fight, while Riggs herself, along with 60,000 wrongly accused voters, her supporters, our state Supreme Court, and democracy itself have all been held hostage for six months. There’s some giddy relief in this celebration. It feels like survival.
Riggs posted,
Now I have to tell you that while we were celebrating, the new NC Elections Board was firing its widely respected director, Karen Brinson Bell, and installing a fellow Republican who is now in charge of elections in our state, including the certification of votes.
These two events on the same day were no coincidence. The timeline of events reveals a successful Republican strategy, in effect from the first day of Griffin’s loss in November.
November and December 2024
Griffin swiftly denied the November 5th Election results, as if his lawyers had been preparing the case for months.
At my county Board of Elections, I attended four public events: the traditional Sample Audit on November 8th; Griffin’s Preliminary Protest Hearing; his first and second recounts.
January 14th, 2025
Early in the morning in Raleigh, in front of the NC State Supreme Court, The Can’t Win Victory Fund broadcasted a daylong reading of the 60,000 names of voters who were challenged by Griffin. I woke up before daylight to turn on my computer, and witnessed this dramatic defense of democracy in America.
The public reading made a difference. That same day,
Griffin amended his complaint to focus on military and overseas voters. Essentially saying "toss these votes out first and if I've won, just don't bother ruling on the remaining 60,000."
His aggressive maneuvers continued. Democrats and others mobilized, informed their communities, and supported legal opposition to Griffin’s team for the full six months.
February 19, 2025
Jefferson Griffin takes this to the Court of Appeals—the very court on which he sits—we must do everything we can to support Justice Riggs.
During the next few months,
Griffin’s case made stops in just about every court you can imagine. It started with the State Board of Elections, then moved to state trial court, then to federal district court, back to state court, up to the Court of Appeals, then to the state Supreme Court - and finally back to federal court.
April 30, 2025
Republican lawmakers stripped the governor of his appointment powers not only to the state election board, but also to the chairs of county election boards. Their duties include carrying out campaign finance laws, certifying election results and setting rules on a host of voting administration details.
A state Court of Appeals panel ruled the law could be implemented starting May 1.
Monday, May 5
Richard Myers II, a district judge and Trump appointee, said that Griffin was trying to change the rules of the election after election day … and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters. …
“This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible,” Myers wrote in his opinion.
“To this court, the answer to each of those questions is ‘no.’”
Wednesday, May 7
Griffin conceded.
So, on May 7th in North Carolina our state voting laws were upheld, as they were in Wisconsin in April. Both these cases signaled the survival of American democracy.
Because Republicans had finally taken control of the NC Board of Elections just days (and hours) before, it’s clear to me why Griffin conceded the NC Supreme Court seat — for now.
Brilliant documentation on the national scope of such unjustified post-election attacks. Also appreciate your detail of the losers’ continued actions, which threaten standards in the state’s elections.
Alice Wellborn's comments are spot on. I will add that Jefferson Griffin and the NC Republican Party should be ashamed of this undemocratic behavior.