Six months after he lost, Jefferson Griffin concedes to Allison Riggs

While Griffin’s effort to steal last year’s NC Supreme Court election was thwarted, it opened a door to a reality where partisan courts could try to apply new rules to change the results of past elections.

It’s over.

After six months and a parade of tangled court rulings, Jefferson Griffin said on Wednesday that he would stop trying to throw out thousands of valid votes in an effort to overturn his loss to Justice Allison Riggs in last November’s state Supreme Court race.

Griffin said he would not appeal a federal judge’s ruling this week ordering election officials to certify Riggs as the winner and saying that Griffin’s effort violated federal voting protections. The ruling by US District Judge Richard Myers, a Trump appointee, was scathing and thorough, leaving Griffin little chance of success in a higher court.

Two recounts in the weeks after the election confirmed that Griffin lost to Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, by 734 votes. Griffin filed lawsuits seeking to throw out more than 65,000 ballots from voters who followed the rules presented to them by state election officials.

Griffin refused all interview requests during the case, but framed himself in court filings as a lone warrior fighting for election integrity in a wasteland of election interference. He accused state election officials of willfully violating the state constitution by allowing these ballots to be counted.

He dressed himself in the same cape while conceding. 

“This effort has always been about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted.”

But every legal vote was counted in this election, every ballot Griffin tried to throw out was legally cast, and his effort would violate the rule of law, Judge Myers ruled.

To retroactively and selectively throw out ballots of voters who followed the rules, Myers wrote, violated federal due process and equal protection principles.

“This case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals” Myers wrote.

“The answer to each of those questions is ‘no.’”

Now a case that has tested the bounds of legal precedent and elementary fairness, prompted marathon protests, and crawled from federal court to state court and back again, finally comes to an end. Griffin’s statement was first reported by the Associated Press.

But while Griffin’s effort was thwarted, it opened a door to a reality where partisan courts could try to apply new rules to change the results of past elections.

‘The will of the voters was finally heard.’

Soon after the news of Griffin’s statement broke, Riggs issued a statement of her own.

“I’m glad the will of the voters was finally heard, six months and two days after Election Day,” Riggs said.

In an interview at a Raleigh coffee shop in December, Riggs told us Griffin’s effort was dangerous, not just for this election, but for all those to come. 

Griffin was not seeking a process that looks at each voter, he pursued a mass purge after the ballots were already counted, and to throw out all those votes based on a seeming paperwork issue would have represented unprecedented interference in an election.

RELATED: Federal judge issues scathing rebuke of Jefferson Griffin’s attempt to steal an election

“The 60,000 people whose ballots my opponent and others want to have tossed, those are real people with real stories,” Justice Riggs said. 

“It’s changing the rules of the game after the game has ended.”

Myers agreed.

“The prospect that thousands of North Carolinians could have their votes discarded if they fail to comply with a retroactive cure process strikes this court as more than mere jot and tittle,” Myers wrote.

“That principle will be familiar to anyone who has played a sport or board game,” Myers continued. “You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done.”

Griffin lost in federal court, but he won enough in state courts, which are filled with Griffin’s Republican colleagues and friends, to offer a blueprint for election losers yet to come. 

‘It never should have happened’

Griffin targeted three kinds of ballots, more than 60,000 of which were from voters whose registrations were missing some information in a state database. He also wanted to throw out more than 5,000 ballots from overseas military voters and their families who did not submit a copy of their Voter ID. Election officials told these voters they did not need to submit a copy and there was no way for them to do so in the state’s online absentee ballot portal. 

Last month, a three-judge panel on the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled on party lines that all 65,000+ voters should have their ballots thrown out unless they proved their eligibility in 15 days. The state NC Supreme Court limited the number of at-risk voters to some 5,000 overseas military voters and their families and extended the “cure” deadline to 30 days, but that left more than enough room for Griffin to reverse the results if the ruling had not been overruled at the federal level.

Legal precedent had long prevented meddling with election rules soon before an election, let alone after the fact. But the rulings by Griffin’s friends on the state courts broke that precedent and could start a new one that allows post-election meddling.  

RELATED: Four of the Republican judges in the Jefferson Griffin case were his de facto running mates in a previous election 

Still that’s down the road. 

For now, the Griffin case has ended.

“It’s been my honor to lead this fight – even though it should never have happened,” Riggs said in her statement. 

 “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,” she said.

Riggs will officially take her seat on the court once the Board of Elections certifies the results. Griffin will resume his duties on the state appeals court.

Griffin said in his statement that he wished Riggs well, though he did not mention her name.

“I wish my opponent the best,” he said, “and will continue to pray for her.”