NC Supreme Court update: Riggs declares victory as her opponent challenges 60,000 votes

“I can say with confidence that I have won my race for the North Carolina Supreme Court!” Riggs posted on social media. 

This is not the final story about the 2024 NC State Supreme Court election results, but we’re getting there.

The results are not official yet, and the regular recount process is underway, but with a current lead of more than 700 votes, incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, has declared victory in the closest race among the state’s highest profile contests. 

The election will not alter the makeup of the court, where Republicans currently hold a 5-2 majority. But if Riggs’ victory is confirmed, Democrats can flip control of the court in 2028. If Riggs’ opponent, state appellate Judge Jefferson Griffin overcomes the margin, either through a recount or through legal challenges, Republicans can maintain control for a decade. 

The margin between Riggs and Griffin is .02 percentage points, well below the threshold for being able to seek a recount. Griffin asked for and was granted the recount this week, a process which should be done by Nov. 27, election officials say.

Griffin has also submitted some 300 pages of documents challenging the validity of more than 60,000 votes, a standard, if much larger than normal, part of the process. 

Because the regular vote counting process is so rigorous and thorough, however, recounts and challenges rarely result in significant differences in the vote count, a factor Riggs cited in publicly claiming the win.

“Tonight, I can say with confidence that I have won my race for the North Carolina Supreme Court!” Riggs posted Wednesday night on her social media accounts. 

“A recount in this race is well underway, and six counties have already completed their recounts. Based on what we are seeing so far, we expect this recount to continue to proceed smoothly, confirm our win, and affirm the great work done by our state election officials,” she added.

60,000 challenges based on scant evidence

Many of Griffin’s ballot challenges are based on legal theories that courts have already rejected.

In documents filed with the state board, Griffin seeks to throw out thousands of ballots from voters whose registrations were missing some identifying data like drivers’ licenses or the last four digits of a social security number. But while that data is required by law, it doesn’t apply to registrations completed before the law went into effect. And just because the data is missing does not mean the voter is ineligible, election officials say.

To invalidate those 60,000 ballots would mean to throw out nearly 60,000 legal votes.

North Carolina and national Republicans filed a lawsuit before voting began in the state asking the court to purge 225,000 people from the state’s voter rolls for the same reason. The judge, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said no.

US Chief District Judge Richard Myers wrote in his ruling that if he sided with Republicans on removing these voters, it would essentially give judges and private citizens the power to unilaterally cancel voter registration based on a mere accusation. That, he wrote, quoting another court’s ruling in a similar case, would “significantly alter the allocation of power … away from a democratic form of government.”

Griffin has said votes from the adult children of North Carolinians living overseas should be thrown out as well, a claim that was also rejected by a separate court in a separate case. State law clearly says that people who were born overseas to parents who were North Carolina residents can vote in the state even if they themselves never lived here. 

Whatever election officials decide on the challenges, Republicans could file new lawsuits contesting some aspects of the vote counting process in hopes that the issue ultimately goes before the state Supreme Court, where Republicans have a majority.

A precedent of close court races

It’s rare in North Carolina that statewide elections are so close that recounts are needed to certify them, except for Supreme Court races. 

In the 2020 election for chief justice, incumbent Democrat Cheri Beasley sought a recount after preliminary results saw her losing to Republican Paul Newby by 406 votes. The recount brought the number to 401. 

Beasley also filed nearly 90 documents worth of challenges, but the majority protested ballots that had been rejected, not ballots that were accepted. 

After the recount, Beasley canceled her challenges and conceded on Dec. 12.