Republican judge sues ahead of final race count in North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — North Carolina appellate Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican running for North Carolina Supreme Court justice in an extremely tight race, sued the state elections board Monday, in advance of official race results.

Griffin, who is running against Democrat Supreme Court Associate Justice Allison Riggs, had maintained a lead over Riggs from Election Day until Friday night, when unofficial counts from the state Board of Elections showed Riggs gain a 106-vote lead over Griffin. On election night, Riggs had trailed Griffin by around 10,000 votes.

As of Monday at 2 p.m., the elections board reports that Riggs leads Griffin by 70 votes, up from 24 on Monday morning. Several county boards of elections still have yet to finalize their results, and are scheduled to meet Monday afternoon to finish considering eligibility challenges, upload their updated totals to the state election site and certify their results. The majority of North Carolina’s 100 counties had finalized their results by Friday, the end of the state’s 10-day canvassing period.

The state reported turnout of over 5.7 million voters, the highest number to date, which increased the amount of work on counties within the same turn-around period, the state board of elections said Friday.

In an 8-page suit, Griffin, joined by his campaign committee and the state Republican party, claims the state elections board violated the North Carolina Public Records Act by not turning over records fast enough.

Candidates are required to file recount requests by noon on Tuesday, and the deadline is rapidly approaching for a still-uncalled race.

The board has said that the delay does not change the recount request deadline, but if results change after the deadline passes a candidate would have 48 hours to request one.

Griffin had requested four different types of public records from the elections board: lists of voters suspected to cast ballots absentee and in-person, voters who voted curbside, lists of felony conviction datasets provided to each county board of elections and lists of deceased voters who voted early before Election Day.

While Griffin has received some of the records he requested, he says they are not identical to the information county election boards were provided — information which could possibly be used to disqualify ballots from ineligible voters.

Griffin, who made records requests on Nov. 9, 11 and 12, says the board has failed to turn over relevant information to meet the “as promptly as possible” threshold established by law, leaving him without all the information shortly before the recount deadline.

“Defendants’ failure to provide the requested information as required by the Public Records Act is, in effect, denial of plaintiffs’ request, and will cause plaintiffs irreparable harm,” Griffin says in the lawsuit.

Pat Gannon, the spokesperson for the state board of elections, said that Griffin’s attorneys demanded that the requested records be produced by 7 a.m. on Monday.

“The law does not require that, but they filed a lawsuit this morning anyway,” he said. “The State Board provided the requested records today. In fact, the lawyers for this campaign were informed this morning that the records would be provided today, but they served the agency with the lawsuit anyway. In sum, this lawsuit is thoroughly unnecessary.”

Griffin’s lead has disappeared as counties waded through thousands of provisional and absentee ballots, but neither candidate has conceded the race given the difference between the candidates is in the dozens of votes. The race is expected to come to a recount regardless of its outcome, but it may be a futile move as the last two Supreme Court recounts in North Carolina didn’t result in a change in election results.

The Supreme Court race is crucial to North Carolina Democrats, who need to maintain seats in the court to stand a chance in the next round of redistricting in 2031. Currently, Republicans control the court with a 5-2 majority. The other Democrat associate justice is Anita Earls, who is running for reelection next year.

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