The ongoing legal battle over 60,000 ballots in the North Carolina Supreme Court election could have significant implications for the state’s judicial system, influencing the court’s short-term composition and possibly establishing new, long-lasting legal and political precedents.
The results show incumbent Associate Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, leading Jefferson Griffin, a Republican and judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, 50.01% to 49.99% — a margin of just 734 votes. But Griffin has leveled a series of legal challenges, most notably contesting over 60,000 ballots as possibly fraudulent.
Numerous protests in recent weeks have called on the state Supreme Court to certify the race and keep the challenged ballots. The case has also garnered significant outside attention, making national headlines and drawing commentary from such prominent figures as Eric Holder Jr., former Attorney General of the United States.
“We've certainly had contested elections, but I'm not aware of any one quite like this,” said Asher Hildebrand, professor of the practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy. “… It's kind of the legal equivalent of throwing a bunch of crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.”
A larger legacy
The state Supreme Court began hearing arguments for the 2025 calendar year in February, even though the election for its final seat remained unresolved.
“It's kind of like changing the rules of the game after the game has ended,” said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, a conservative research nonprofit, of a potential ruling in Griffin’s favor. Nevertheless, he added that unless Republican justices diverge from their ideological counterparts, the case is unlikely to significantly alter the court’s work this term.
Riggs will retain her seat on the court until a final decision is made, although she has recused herself from ruling on the case. If she prevails, the court will maintain its 5-2 Republican majority, similar to the party’s 6-1 control in the event of a Griffin victory.
Still, Hildebrand pointed out that Griffin’s challenges have much broader implications.
“One reason [Griffin’s] claim is problematic is because if [the contested voters] shouldn't have been registered in the first place, then the implication is not just for this Supreme Court race,” HIldebrand said. “It's for every other race on the ballot this year, and, for that matter, every election they've ever voted in.”
He noted that other candidates who lose by narrow margins could file similar lawsuits in the future to throw out votes. Hildebrand also expressed concern that the case could lead to a new precedent favoring “partisan judicial intervention” on election issues usually settled by nonpartisan authorities, such as the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
North Carolina’s swing state status and history of close races could further complicate matters. Judicial elections have gained a higher profile in recent years, with state Supreme Court races in 2020 and 2022 also grabbing headlines.
“There was a time when state court races, even state Supreme Court races, were fairly sleepy affairs,” Hildebrand said. “There wasn't a lot of money coming into them. A lot of the candidates tended to be, if not ideologically moderate, at least muted in their partisan politics.”
Supreme Court races in North Carolina were officially nonpartisan until the N.C. General Assembly passed new legislation in December 2016, establishing a partisan election process. This change has since raised concerns about the potential politicization of the court — an unease that continues today, particularly after party-line decisions to overturn or reconsider long-standing precedent on issues such as redistricting, education funding and voter ID laws.
Jackson pointed out that the state’s Republican-leading nature gives the GOP an advantage in down-ballot, “generic” partisan races.
“In the sense that voters can now choose and have a reasonable idea of how judges will rule, … you're going to have a more … partisan judiciary, because that's what voters have chosen,” Jackson explained.
Reviewing the legal challenges
The NCSBE had completed two recounts in December, both of which confirmed Riggs’ lead, before deciding against a full hand recount in line with state law. The state Supreme Court has blocked the election’s certification due to the ongoing litigation.
A Wake County Superior Court judge dismissed Griffin’s case to throw out over 65,000 ballots Feb. 7, although his team appealed the decision a few days later. On Feb. 13, Riggs and the NCSBE filed to bypass the state Court of Appeals and have the case heard directly by the state Supreme Court, but their petition was subsequently rejected.
The lawsuit alleges that 62,027 of the over 65,000 voters in question failed to properly register with the state by not providing the final four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number, in violation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
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HAVA dictates that if voters cannot provide either form of identification while registering, or later at the ballot box, they can cast a provisional ballot. Under North Carolina law, county officials then work to verify the voter’s eligibility after the fact to determine whether to count the ballot.
Jackson said the state’s registration forms did not indicate either identification number as required and that county boards were never instructed to correct registrations. An October 2023 complaint filed with the NCSBE claimed this oversight impacted 217,977 registrations.
“There were problems with the registrations,” Jackson said. “… But that does not necessarily indicate that those folks themselves are not eligible voters and they voted based on the rules as applied at the time.”
Several voters whose registrations have been challenged have since come forward, stating that they did provide the HAVA-mandated identification. An NCSBE audit concluded that 29,972 of the challenged voters provided the required identification numbers when they initially registered.
Some voters may have registered before the act was passed in 2002, meaning they were not required to include the numbers on their registration forms. Additionally, data entry mistakes during the registration process could have prevented the verification of voters’ identification numbers, despite their presence on state voter rolls.
Griffin has contested ballots from people he claims have never lived in North Carolina, as well as approximately 5,500 overseas and military ballots, which he alleged did not include a required photo ID when mailed and were thus invalid. A January ProPublica report revealed that Griffin himself used this voting method in 2019 and 2020.
“The state board cannot predict what will occur in the courts with these challenges,” the NCSBE wrote in a statement. “… [B]ecause this effort involves attempting to match information in different government databases — using records created at different times in people’s lives — there are often mismatches in the data.”
Samanyu Gangappa is a Trinity sophomore and local/national news editor for the news department.