Jefferson Griffin, who is running for North Carolina state Supreme Court judge, asked that court to toss 60,000 votes his legal team deemed problematic, NBC News reported. Griffin is losing to Democratic challenger Justice Allison Riggs by just 734 votes in that race.
Griffin is an appeals court judge who wished to move to the state's highest court this election cycle. With the race so close, he believes the Democrat-controlled election board needs to hold off on certifying the vote because the votes in question were unlawfully cast.
"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," Griffin's attorneys asserted.
Nearly 5 million votes had been cast in that election, and a machine count revealed the relative closeness of the two candidates. However, the court previously rejected Griffin's request to throw out what he calls fraudulent votes because they didn't have a photo ID or Social Security number to verify the votes.
North Carolina Democrats are currently in the minority in the court's 5-2 balance. They claim Griffin is attempting to use that to his advantage to sway a free and fair election.
"There is a five alarm fire happening in NC right now. In a truly outlandish move, Jefferson Griffin has now taken his attack on voters one step further," the North Carolina Democratic Party posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
"He is hiding behind Chief Justice Paul Newby and he is now trying to achieve what’s been aiming for all along: getting the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court to toss out legitimate ballots and hand this seat to him. There have been multiple recounts that all confirmed that Justice Riggs won this seat by 734 votes," the post went on.
"His conduct continues to demonstrate that he is not fit to serve on the Court. Concede now," Democrats urged.
🚨There is a five alarm fire happening in NC right now. In a truly outlandish move, Jefferson Griffin has now taken his attack on voters one step further. He is hiding behind Chief Justice Paul Newby and he is now trying to achieve what’s been aiming for all along: getting the…
— NC Democratic Party (@NCDemParty) December 19, 2024
This race between the judges highlights an ongoing problem with trust in elections. Griffin's attorneys maintain that these votes should never have been counted, but the North Carolina State Board of Elections has rejected three of their disputes.
Still, Patrick Gannon, a spokesperson for the NCSBE, said that they have "certified the vote totals" in the election between the judges but can't finalize results "until all protests and appeals are adjudicated." Griffin's team had also filed a federal case asking that 225,000 ineligible voters be removed.
That case was tossed out of federal court, but Griffin's legal filings for the latest complaint assert that his objections are "questions that our nation’s system of federalism reserves for state courts, not federal courts." Perhaps this is easy for opponents to explain away as sour grapes from Griffin.
However, the 2024 presidential election's favorable results for GOP President-elect Donald Trump have done little to dispel persistent rumors about election fraud, CBS News reported. While the network claims that the idea of widespread voter fraud has been debunked, there is a deep mistrust in the process.
The state will eventually hash out its election results between Griffin and Riggs. However, that won't put to rest the persistent feeling that the process can no longer be trusted, especially when verifying voters are who they say they are is no longer a priority.
