The race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, between Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs and Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin, is the last uncertified statewide race in the country.
Griffin’s legal actions have targeted ballots in three ways. First, he’s challenging over 60,000 ballots, claiming they’re from improperly registered voters. The North Carolina Board of Elections has argued that those voters are eligible to vote, although there are incorrect or missing data in their records, largely due to clerical errors.
Griffin is also challenging another batch of over 5,500 ballots from military and overseas voters because those voters did not present voter ID. Election officials have argued that state law exempts those voters covered by federal law allowing overseas voting (the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Vote Act, or UOCAVA). Griffin is also contesting a few hundred ballots cast by overseas citizens who have never resided in North Carolina, but are covered by various state laws which allow them to vote.
On Friday, a superior court judge in Wake County (where state-level issues are often litigated) ruled against Griffin. But his legal avenues are far from exhausted.
Much of the coverage has explored Griffin’s legal arguments, and activists have highlighted how Griffin’s challenges would disproportionately impact Democratic voters. (Take this list and searchable map which allows people to see if their voters are among those being challenged.)
Several readers have said they’ve been left uncertain about what a ruling in the Griffin case could mean for other races. They noted that, for example, over 1,700 ballots from Griffin’s list are from purple New Hanover County, where several races were won or lost by just a few hundred votes. Readers asked: would those races be re-examined if some, or all, of the ballots being challenged were thrown out?
According to Patrick Gannon, spokesperson for the state’s Board of Elections, that’s not how things have happened historically.
“The State Board of Elections and the courts considering post-election litigation in North Carolina have routinely interpreted the law to be that once a certificate of election is issued for a contest, it is final,” Gannon wrote.
For example, in 2018 the state ordered a new election in the Congressional race between Democrat Dan McCready and Republican Mark Harris, after evidence of ballot tampering by one of Harris’ aides emerged. Harris himself ultimately called for a re-run of the election, and stepped aside; his replacement, Dan Bishop, won in a new election conducted in 2019. Only the congressional race, which had not been certified, was revisited; all of the other races, including local races in the eight counties making up the congressional district, had been certified and were left to stand.
Still, while re-examining hundreds of county, regional, and state races would be unusual – and likely onerous and expensive for local boards of election – it doesn’t appear technically impossible.
As Gannon noted, “we cannot predict what the courts will do.”
