North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Allison Riggs enters the House chamber ahead of Gov. Josh Stein's State of the State address on March 12, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
Republican Judge Jefferson Grifin’s attempt to throw out votes on military and overseas absentee ballots is unconstitutional, federal District Judge Richard Myers ruled Monday.
In a 68-page ruling, Myers said the state Board of Elections should certify the election results based on the tally of all eligible votes in November, which means Democratic incumbent Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs would prevail in the race for the seat on the high court over Griffin. Her 734-vote lead over Griffin was affirmed by two recounts.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II (File photo)In the long-running dispute over voter eligibility, Griffin was seeking to throw out more than 60,000 votes covering three categories of voters.
The state Supreme Court majority said most of those votes should be counted, but ruled that military and overseas absentee voters should have had to show photo ID. The few hundred votes from people who said they had never lived in North Carolina but were connected to the state through their parents should not be counted, the court majority ruled.
The state Board of Elections did not require military and overseas absentee voters provide ID. Griffin had challenged military and overseas absentee votes from a handful of Democratic counties.
The state had counted votes from what Griffin called “never residents” for years without controversy. A reporter writing for The Assembly found that some of the “never residents” on Griffin’s list live in the state. Griffin did not want the state Board of Elections to give those voters a chance prove their residency before their votes were thrown out.
Myers ruled that election rules cannot be changed after the fact.
“[T]his 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. This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible.
“To this court, the answer to each of those questions is ‘no.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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