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More than two months after Election Day, a race for a seat on North Carolina’s Supreme Court still has not been certified, even though the Democrat has held the lead through two recounts.
The Republican challenger argues tens of thousands of the ballots cast were from ineligible voters.
Now a messy battle is playing out in the courts.
“I mean there are so many unknowns here. I know we use this phrase a lot lately, but we really are in uncharted waters here,” said Western Carolina politics professor Chris Cooper.
After two recounts Democrat Allison Riggs, a sitting justice on the court, continues to lead Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin, a state Court of Appeals judge, by more than 700 votes.
But Griffin is not conceding, arguing more than 60,000 ballots should be thrown out because the voter registration records didn’t have a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.
“These folks… had to show their ID when they voted. So, this is a registration issue, not actually an issue when they went to vote,” Cooper said. “If you think about it from a voter perspective, saying these people who followed every rule they knew how to follow, they thought everything was fine and somebody came in 2025 and said, ‘Just kidding. We don’t think your vote should have counted. And only in this election.’”
The North Carolina State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin’s protests and was ready to certify the winner, but the state Supreme Court, controlled by Republicans, agreed to temporarily block the election certification until it issued a final decision. Riggs recused herself from the deliberations.
Now a federal court is also taking up the case on Jan. 27, raising the prospect of potentially conflicting rulings.
“If they have different decisions, what exactly is that going to mean? Which one is enforceable? I just don’t know,” Cooper said.
Democrats says Griffin is trying to overturn legitimate election results and they draw comparisons with what then-President Donald Trump tried to do in his election loss in 2020.
“Four years after Jan. 6, we are once again reminded about how fragile our democracy truly is,” Rep. Deborah Ross, a North Carolina Democrat, said on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The state’s Republican Party says Griffin’s challenge is about ensuring election integrity.
If the courts throw out tens of thousands of votes, the decision could have a major impact on future elections around the country.
“I think you’re going to see a lot more challenges,” Cooper said. “I think you’re going to see a lot more what people call lawfare, people deciding to use the courts to try and get an election victory, when the vote tally showed that they lost.”
