Photo: Tim Barnwell
Legislative News by Nelda Holder –
Just how often do I get this chance?
First, to use that headline for one of the premiere North Carolina political stories of the season, and second—in today’s column—to just repeat verbatim the entire first section of my January 17, 2025 column (see “Curiouser and Curiouser: The Disappearing Judgeship”). That’s because three months later, Republican judicial candidate Jefferson Griffin is still contesting the election of opposing Democratic candidate Allison Riggs to the position of NC Supreme Court judge.
Most North Carolinians have surely read or heard about this—perhaps so much about it they might have stopped paying attention. But last November, the State Board of Elections declared Riggs the winner of the general election Supreme Court contest by 734 votes. That was out of a total of votes 5,540,096 cast statewide, and there was an initial count, one full recount, and a third partial recount in this contest before the declaration of a winner.
Griffin then formally protested. He wanted more than 60,000 Riggs votes declared ineligible due predominately to a missing driver’s license number and/or the last four digits of a Social Security number. And that’s where the information in our January report becomes particularly interesting. It details an intriguing little plot reported on by ProPublica’s Doug Bock Clark in the December 23rd edition (“A North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate’s Bid to Overturn His Loss Is Based on Theory Election Deniers Deemed Extreme”). Here’s the pertinent skivvy:
“Pro Publica notes that one idea discussed (in a telephone conversation between ‘election skeptics’ months before the election) was to ‘try to get the courts or state election board to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots’ cast by individuals whose on-file voter registrations (emphasis mine) are…
Read the full article here
