Griffin asks NC Supreme Court to stop elections board ‘from counting unlawful ballots’

Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin is asking North Carolina’s highest court to issue an order blocking state elections officials “from counting unlawful ballots” from the recent election. Griffin trails appointed incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs by 734 votes in a race that has not yet been certified.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections is scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to address the last unresolved protests Griffin filed in connection with the election. The board already has rejected most of the more than 300 protests Griffin filed challenging more than 60,000 ballots statewide.

A board spokesman responded to Griffin’s latest complaint Wednesday by pointing to the 43-page order issued on Dec. 11 responding to Griffin’s challenges.

Griffin seeks a temporary stay “before Monday” to give the state Supreme Court time to consider his request for a writ of prohibition. Griffin’s lawyers filed a 3,992-page document Wednesday afternoon detailing his request.

The stay would block the state elections board from certifying an election result favoring Riggs. It also would block a requirement that Griffin file a petition for a judicial review within 10 days of the elections board’s decision. “[A] temporary stay will protect this Court’s jurisdiction to decide the questions of law that are raised in Judge Griffin’s election protests — questions that our nation’s system of federalism reserves for state courts, not federal courts.”

The North Carolina Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit on Dec. 6 focusing on Griffin’s challenged election ballots. Griffin intervened in that case as a defendant. The case sits in US Chief District Judge Richard Myers’ courtroom.

Griffin’s court filing explained why he pursued an order beyond a temporary stay. “Judge Griffin asks the Court to exercise its power — as granted by the North Carolina Constitution — to supervise inferior tribunals, such as the State Board,” his lawyers wrote. “Judge Griffin asks the Court to issue a writ of prohibition that prohibits the State Board from counting ballots cast in violation of North Carolina’s statutes and constitution. … [T]he State Board has continued to issue rulings and administer our elections in violation of North Carolina law, and the Board’s lawlessness cannot be allowed to continue.”

“The State Board is an administrative agency that has knowingly broken the law and refused to do anything about it,” Griffin’s lawyers argued. “Indeed, the Board has been breaking our election laws for decades. This lawlessness was brought to the Board’s attention back in 2023, before the 2024 general election, but the Board refused to correct its errors.”

“Now those chickens have come home to roost. In the 2024 general election, the Board’s errors changed the outcome of the election for the open seat on this Court. When those errors were raised again in valid election protests, the Board then claimed that it was too late to fix its law-breaking,” the court filing continued.

“At bottom, this case presents a fundamental question: who decides our election laws? Is it the people and their elected representatives, or the unelected bureaucrats sitting on the State Board of Elections? If the Board gets its way, then it is the real sovereign here. It can ignore the election statutes and constitutional provisions, while administering an election however it wants,” Griffin’s lawyers wrote.

Griffin’s court filing highlighted three categories of election protests: voters who registered without providing a driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number, voters who never have lived in North Carolina, and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification.

“In response to these protests, the State Board and the opposing candidate, Justice Allison Riggs, have claimed that Judge Griffin is seeking a retroactive change in the election laws. That flatly mischaracterizes the timeline,” the court filing continued. “Our registration statutes required drivers license or social security numbers back in 2004. Our state constitution has imposed a residency requirement since 1776. And photo identification has been required for absentee voting since at least 2018. The laws that should have governed this election were, therefore, established long before this election. The State Board simply chose to break the law.”

The state elections board meeting scheduled Friday is set to deal with protests from Griffin and three Republican legislative candidates on issues other than the ones spelled out in Griffin’s legal filing Wednesday. The state board tasked county elections boards with addressing protests involving possible voting by felons, votes cast by people who died before Election Day, and votes cast by people who had been removed from the voting rolls.

In a Dec. 11 meeting, the state board rejected the three groups of protests Griffin mentioned in his latest complaint. The Democrat-majority board voted 3-2 to reject protests based on incomplete voter registration data and nonresident voters. The board voted unanimously to reject protests involving overseas voters who did not provide photo ID.

The post Griffin asks NC Supreme Court to stop elections board ‘from counting unlawful ballots’ first appeared on Carolina Journal.