Jefferson Griffin, the Republican candidate in the 2024 North Carolina state Supreme Court election, finally conceded six months after losing the race to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, the Associated Press reported.
Griffin’s concession comes after a federal judge Monday ordered the state to certify Riggs’ election victory. The federal court order effectively halted Griffin’s ongoing efforts to overturn the election and disenfranchise thousands of voters. In a statement, the North Carolina elections board said the race will be certified after the federal court’s seven-day stay ends, on May 12.
“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin said in a statement provided to the Associated Press. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”
In a statement, Riggs hailed the victory but lamented the “immeasurable damage done to our democracy.”
“After millions of dollars spent, more than 68,000 voters at risk of losing their votes, thousands of volunteers mobilized, hundreds of legal documents filed, and immeasurable damage done to our democracy, I’m glad the will of the voters was finally heard, six months and two days after Election Day,” she said. “It’s been my honor to lead this fight — even though it should never have happened — and I’m in awe of the North Carolinians whose courage reminds us all that we can use our voices to hold accountable any politician who seeks to take power out of the hands of the people.”
Riggs won the election in November by just 734 votes, but Griffin mounted a massive legal challenge to overturn the election results and disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters. At the heart of Griffin’s lawsuit was a challenge to 65,000 lawfully cast ballots that he believed should be tossed out, because of errors made by the North Carolina elections board. The board counted some 60,000 ballots cast by voters with allegedly incomplete registration.
Griffin also challenged several thousand other ballots cast by military and overseas voters who didn’t provide their photo ID — because state law didn’t require them to when they registered to vote. The lawsuit also challenged the ballots of several hundred “never resident” voters: overseas voters who were registered in North Carolina but never resided in the state.
The battle over counting these ballots lingered for months in both state and federal court. In early April, a three-judge panel in the North Carolina appeals court ruled to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters with incomplete registrations, unless they fixed their ballots within 15 days. Riggs’ campaign fought this ruling and the state Supreme Court narrowed the number of ballots being challenged to around 5,000 — with 30 days for voters to cure those ballots.
Riggs continued to fight in court to ensure no ballots risked disenfranchisement. Her victory came Monday when Judge Richard E. Myers II, a Trump appointee, ruled that Griffin’s argument to toss some ballots violated equal protection because it treated some voters differently than others in the same situation.
In a statement, the North Carolina Republican Party said that they “respect the court’s opinion” but remained concerned about “serious election integrity issues” brought to light by the litigation.
“Judge Griffin deserves the appreciation of every North Carolinian for highlighting the appalling mismanagement, inaccurate data, and partisan behavior from the prior State Board of Elections — failures affirmed by multiple courts, including the highest court in our State,” the NC GOP added.
In fact, the litigation raised no significant evidence whatsoever that any illegitimate votes were cast.
The North Carolina elections board Wednesday picked a new executive director after the state’s second-highest court gave the GOP control of the board in a partisan power grab.
In a statement on Griffin’s concession, Karen Brinson Bell, the outgoing executive director, said, “I hope we return [to] a time when those who lose elections concede defeat rather than trying to tear down the entire election system and erode voter confidence.”