EDITOR’S NOTE: Superior Court Judge William Pittman upheld the election board’s decision to reject challenges by Democratic candidate Jefferson Griffin.
RALEIGH, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – The next stage of the legal battle for a seat on North Carolina’s Supreme Court began Friday.
A Wake County judge heard arguments in the case of Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin against the State Board of Elections and Democrat Justice Allison Riggs Friday morning.
Griffin and his counsel are attempting to throw out at least 60,273 votes out of the 5.5 million cast in the November 2024 election.
It’s the only race left undecided in the country. State elections officials report Riggs won by a margin of 734 votes and confirmed their total with two recounts.
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Griffin is challenging ballots belonging to voters whose registration is missing information in the state’s database. In most cases, the registration was lacking either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a social security number. A state law passed in 2004 requires one of the two numbers on an application for voter registration.
Griffin is also challenging ballots of overseas and active duty military members without copies of the voters’ photo ID.
The State Board of Elections reviewed Griffin’s protest in December but dismissed it due to insufficient evidence of any violation of election law.
Kyle Farson is one of the 60,000-plus voters still wondering if his ballot will count. The Jamestown resident said he has been registered at the same address for ten years, and he has participated in every election in that time with no issue.
“There was no question about the validity of my registration. There was no problem with my identification, and I went in there and voted nice and smooth,” Farson said. “I only found out my vote was included last week.”
Farson is a registered Republican. He said he supports voter ID laws and confirming a voter’s citizenship before they may cast a ballot. However, he said he does not believe Griffin’s challenge holds weight because missing information on a technical error should not invalidate a registration of an identified voter.
“If those votes get counted and 50,000 of them go to the Democrat, I’m okay with that because those were their votes, and they’re our people,” he said.
Buncombe County resident James Gregory, also a registered Republican whose vote is in jeopardy, said he had never been contacted previously about issues with his registration.
“I am more than mad about it. I am beside myself,” Gregory said. “I was raised in a free country, but we’re far from being free now.”
Until a ruling is finalized, Griffin and Riggs will continue to serve in their current roles.
Farson said in the future, he hopes county and state boards of election will proactively conduct voter registration audits to keep legal challenges from taking up time on the dockets of the courts.
“Unfortunately, that’s the way these things get done and it’s a costly experience,” he said.
