On May 7, 2025, Judge Jefferson Griffin of the North Carolina Court of Appeals conceded the election for Seat Six on the North Carolina Supreme Court, following a months-long campaign to tilt the twice-recounted election results in his favor. Judge Griffin’s concession comes shortly after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina issued an order permanently enjoining the retroactive application of new rules to the November 2024 election, which would have presumptively disenfranchised thousands of eligible North Carolina voters in violation of their constitutional rights.
After incumbent Justice Allison Riggs won re-election by hundreds of votes, Judge Griffin filed various challenges seeking after-the-fact disenfranchisement of voters who had followed the rules established by the North Carolina State Board of Elections at the time of the election. After proceedings in both state and federal court, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered the initial disqualification of votes cast by overseas and military voters in certain Democratic-leaning counties on the ground that they had failed to submit a copy of their photo ID at the time they cast their ballot—even though the statewide election rules did not require them to do so, and even though the electronic portal through which they voted provided no way for them to submit their ID.
In its order enjoining the disqualification of any such votes, the Eastern District of North Carolina held that such retroactive changes to the election rules violated voters’ due process rights and that the targeting of overseas and military voters only in certain counties violated equal protection, because overseas and military voters in all other North Carolina counties also did not submit ID when voting, and yet did not stand to have their votes presumptively disqualified and subjected to a flawed “cure” process.
Together with co-counsel Protect Democracy and the Harvard Election Law Clinic, Altshuler Berzon LLP brought one of several challenges to the retroactive rule changes on behalf of a group of affected voters and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina.
The court’s order is available here, and a related press release is available here.