Federal appeals judges try to untangle litigation over pending North Carolina court election

Source: AP

Updated 7:43 PM EST, January 27, 2025


RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals panel exchanged arguments Monday with lawyers over a still-unresolved November election for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat, immersed in jurisdictional questions over which courts should determine whether roughly 66,000 ballots should have been counted.

Three judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, heard, among others, from attorneys for Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs, trailing Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin and the State Board of Elections, which last month dismissed Griffin’s demand that the ballots get removed from their race tally.

Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes from over 5.5 million cast in the race. Griffin’s attorneys have said their client is likely to win if the votes they allege came from ineligible voters are discounted. Riggs’ allies say Griffin should concede. The eight-year term at stake in the election was supposed to begin in early January. Riggs remains on the court in the meantime. A Griffin victory would expand the high court’s current 5-2 conservative majority.

The panel did not indicate when it will rule following 90 minutes of oral arguments over whether Griffin’s efforts to remove the ballots should be heard in federal court or remain in state court.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-supreme-court-2024-election-appeals-bcddcbc85f23a83604c7eaa77f57b0a4