North Carolina elections officials may not yet start the process to throw out potentially thousands of votes from the 2024 elections, federal judges ordered Tuesday night in a case that could decide who wins a seat on the state Supreme Court.
The ruling is a win for Democratic incumbent Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs and a loss for her Republican challenger, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, in the race. Riggs received 734 more ballots than Griffin, recounts show, but the race hasn't been certified because Griffin is challenging about 65,000 ballots over voter registration and compliance with voter identification rules.
Other WRAL Top Stories
Tuesday's 2-1 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit didn't hand Riggs a total victory. Rather, it temporarily blocks a previous state court ruling from going into effect. The state court ordered the state Board of Elections to request photo identification from potentially thousands of overseas voters and to throw out the ballots of those who don't provide one. The federal ruling presses pause on that process, allowing Riggs time to pursue her federal court claims.
Riggs's federal appeal says that her colleagues on the state Supreme Court, by ruling in Griffin's favor, have violated the U.S. Constitution by depriving voters of their rights to due process and equal protection.
In a rarity in this case, which has so far seen court decisions handed down almost entirely along party lines, Tuesday's ruling in Riggs' favor was bipartisan. One of the panel's Republican judges sided with Griffin, but the other Republican judge on the panel sided with a Democratic judge to rule for Riggs.
Mutiple recounts confirmed Riggs received 734 more votes than Griffin in last year's election, a sliver of the more than 5 million North Carolinians who cast a ballot for Supreme Court. In response, Griffin sued in an attempt to throw out about 65,000 people's ballots. If he prevails in court, Griffin expects to win the race.
Earlier this month, fellow Republicans on the state Supreme Court rejected the majority of Griffin's challenges over voter registration inconsistencies — things like misspelled names or missing hyphens. But the high court did allow his challenges against potentially thousands of overseas voters to go forward.
Overseas voters weren't required to show photo identification in the election, but the court ruled that they should've been. It gave those voters 30 days to prove their identity or else have their ballots thrown out. The Supreme Court, through its order, also changed other election rules to decide that several hundred voters shouldn't have been allowed to vote at all, with seemingly no recourse for them to have their ballots counted, although that part of the ruling is now subject to additional legal fights. A group of voters is challenging the application of that change to the 2024 election.
Riggs, as well as officials from the State Board of Elections, have argued the Supreme Court's ruling in Griffin's favor is unconstitutional since it changes the rules after the election is already over, and since it treats some voters differently than others. Griffin didn't challenge all overseas voters, just those from a handful of Democratic-leaning counties.
Tuesday's ruling from the federal appeals court pauses the 30-day timer ordered by the state Supreme Court, and it also forbids the state elections board from contacting any of the potentially impacted voters while these appeals play out.
At the same time, a separate case is moving forward in both state and federal courts over how to interpret the Supreme Court's decision. The elections board wants to use a narrow interpretation that would likely lead to a smaller number of voters having their ballots tossed, but Griffin is seeking a broader interpretation that would likely throw out more ballots.