“I’m glad the will of the voters was finally heard,” incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs said.
A conservative state judge in North Carolina who attempted to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters in order to win a state Supreme Court race against a liberal incumbent has finally conceded the election, more than six months after it initially took place.
Last November, Judge Jefferson Griffin lost to Justice Allison Riggs by a mere 734 votes. After recounts affirmed her win, Griffin filed a lawsuit seeking to challenge the legality of around 65,000 ballots, including those of state residents and active military members currently living overseas (a voting method Griffin himself has utilized in the past).
After months of litigation, federal Judge Richard Myers of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled on Monday that Griffin’s legal argument to retroactively change election standards in order to toss out those votes was unconstitutional, and that the state board of elections must certify Riggs’s win.
“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers said in his opinion, adding that to do what Griffin was requesting would “violate the equal protection and substantive due process rights” of thousands of North Carolina voters.
Myers stated in his ruling that he would grant Griffin a full week to decide whether or not to appeal. Griffin announced on Wednesday that he would not exercise that option, and would concede the election, half a year after his initial loss on Election Day 2024.
“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding…I will not appeal the court’s decision,” Griffin said in a statement.
Riggs celebrated the finality of her victory, but said that “immeasurable damage” had been “done to our democracy” because of Griffin’s attempts to usurp the outcome.
Riggs added:
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 — and I’m in awe of the North Carolinians whose courage reminds us all that we can use our voices to hold accountable any politician who seeks to take power out of the hands of the people.
Riggs’s victory means the liberal bloc of justices will have a majority on the bench of the state’s highest court. Adam Cohen, vice chair for Lawyers for Good Government and an advisory board member of DemCast, said on social media that the implications of her win “are HUGE” as the Republican state legislature “won’t be able to gerrymander election maps.”
Without that ability, Democrats could win more congressional seats in the state, meaning the state Supreme Court race will likely play a role in national politics, too.
“Can you say Speaker Hakeem Jeffries?” Cohen added.
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