The News & Observer – Opinion
NC Supreme Court race ruling is a dangerous attack on voters who followed the rules | Opinion
The Editorial Board – April 4, 2025
Roughly 65,000 votes are just a step away from being thrown out after the North Carolina Court of Appeals sided with Jefferson Griffin in his lawsuit seeking to overturn the state Supreme Court race he lost by 734 votes out of more than 5 million cast.
In a stunning decision that changes the rules of an election after that election has occurred, the court ruled that the vast majority of the votes in question must be recounted and verified, and voters will be given 15 days to “cure” their ballots by providing documentation to verify their identities.
The ruling creates a dangerous precedent for overturning an election result that the loser simply doesn’t like.
The decision by a three-judge panel broke along party lines, with two Republicans in support of Griffin’s appeal and Democrat Judge Toby Hampson issuing a lengthy dissent, rejects rulings by the State Board of Elections and a Wake Superior Court judge who found the board ruled correctly.
The case is now almost certain to go to the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court, where Griffin’s opponent in the race, Justice Allison Riggs, will recuse herself. If the state Supreme Court upholds the appeals court’s ruling, it will be a new extreme in judicial partisanship and a national embarrassment for North Carolina.
The ruling also places an extraordinary burden on voters who must now defend their legitimacy despite the fact that they did nothing wrong. In most cases, those voters simply did not have a driver’s license number or Social Security number attached to their voter registration. That could be because the directions on their registration form were unclear, or because there was a typo or other clerical error in the database. Republicans argue that means their identities cannot be verified, even though those voters were required to show ID in order to cast their vote.
Giving the affected voters the opportunity to cure their ballots does not make this decision any less an act of disenfranchisement. It’s fantastical to think that any meaningful share of those voters will provide the missing information in such a tight window, especially those living overseas who may not even receive notice until the 15 days are nearly over.
It’s worth noting that Griffin has not been able to prove that any of the voters he is challenging were actually ineligible to vote. Yet he — and the court — are fervent in their assertion that those votes may well be illegal.
As Hampson wrote in his dissent: “Petitioner has not established that any one of the ballots he challenges was cast by an unlawfully registered voter. Therefore, Petitioner has not met his burden of establishing probable cause to believe a violation of election law has occurred.”
Even more ridiculous is the fact that the new standard is not being evenly applied — the votes Griffin chose to challenge disproportionately belong to demographics or counties that lean Democratic. Only these specific ballots, in this specific race, are at risk of being thrown out. It undermines the public’s faith in our elections and in the judges that are apparently willing to overturn them.
Friday’s ruling sends the unwelcome message that the right to vote in North Carolina may be more fragile than ever. Even if you follow the rules, that right can still be taken away from you months later by judges who believe themselves more bound to partisanship than to the law. It’s a shame for democracy, and a shame for North Carolina.