Jefferson Griffin, the Republican judge who lost his bid for North Carolina’s Supreme Court, is appealing a recent court decision that upheld his 2024 defeat as his legal team continues its effort to get some 65,000 ballots tossed out.
On Friday, Wake County Superior Court ruled in favor of the state Board of Elections and state Supreme Court Judge Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent who won the election by 734 votes, a result confirmed by multiple recounts. The board had previously denied Griffin’s protests of the election results. Griffin responded to the denial of his protests by filing this case against the board.
“The court concludes as a matter of law that the board’s decision was not in violation of constitutional provisions, was not in excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency, was made upon lawful procedure, and was not affected by other error of law,” Judge William Pittman said in his ruling.
On Monday, Griffin appealed the case to the state Court of Appeals. Griffin himself is a judge on that court, along with two others, Valerie Zachary and Tom Murry, who donated to Griffin’s campaign. Cases are heard by a three-judge panel selected from the court’s 15 members. Griffin’s appeal did not level any new arguments.
After he filed the appeal, Democrats demanded that Griffin and those who supported the campaign recuse themselves.
“To protect North Carolina voters, it is now critical that Judge Griffin recuse himself from hearing his own case. Judges Valerie Zachary and Tom Murry, whose campaign committees donated to Griffin, should recuse themselves too,” Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Griffin announced that he would indeed do so, telling NC Newslline: “I won’t participate in any matters related to my case at the COA.” Griffin did not respond to a request for comment from Salon.
North Carolina’s judicial ethics code states that “a judge should disqualify himself/herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality may reasonably be questioned,” including in instances where a “judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”
Zachary and Murry have not yet recused themselves. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.
In the case, Griffin is arguing that his loss should be overturned because voters were permitted to cast ballots when their registrations lacked either a driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number, which in some cases were missing due to errors by the state. Critics have argued that any such complaint should have been filed prior to the election.
Griffin’s legal team is not contesting in-person ballots from voters with the same registration issues, but instead focusing on votes by mail, which lean Democratic. In court, Griffin’s legal team has failed to demonstrate that any voter who cast a ballot would have actually been ineligible to vote.
While the state Board of Elections and Riggs won at trial, litigation in the case is expected to drag on with an appeal to the state Supreme Court likely. Riggs and the state board of election also attempted to bring the case into federal court, arguing that tossing the voters of tens of thousands of voters would be a federal issue.
The Fourth Circuit weighed in on the matter, ruling that the case should be litigated in state court first and that if there are any outstanding federal legal issues afterward, those issues can be resolved in federal court.
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