By Cash Michaels –
The only unresolved election contest in the country, five months after the November 2024 balloting, is here in North Carolina, and it’s aftermath has taken another significant turn.
On Monday, April 7, 2025, the NC Supreme Court stepped in to temporarily stop an order by a three-judge panel of the NC Court of Appeals that would have compelled over 60,000 North Carolina voters, many of whom are Black, to prove their eligibility in the race between incumbent state Supreme Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, and NC Appellate Court Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican.
The race between Riggs and Griffin was for Justice Riggs’ state Supreme Court seat. After a post-election statewide recount last November, Justice Riggs reportedly won her race by 734 votes out of 5.2 million cast over Judge Griffin. But refusing to accept defeat, Griffin contested Riggs’ victory by challenging over 60,000 votes already counted, alleging that those voters were not eligible to cast ballots because their registrations were invalid with incomplete Social Security or driver’s license numbers.
Both the NC Board of Elections and a Trump-appointed federal judge had already ruled that that information was no longer necessary for valid voter registrations, but that didn’t stop Judge Griffin from pressing his case legally to work his way up to courts that might rule more in his favor.
Judge Griffin is hoping that by eliminating those 60,000 plus votes, he will effectively win the race for the NC Supreme Court, taking Justice Riggs’ seat.
Riggs is one of only two Democrats on the seven-member high court. Her loss would make it difficult for Democrats to regain the majority anytime in the near future.
A three-judge panel of the NC Appellate Court ruled in Griffin’s favor on April 4 with a 2-1 decision, with the panel’s two Republican judges—colleagues of Judge Griffin—ruling in his favor.
That panel…
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