RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court said Friday it will hear more arguments related to an extremely close November election for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat where the trailing candidate has argued that tens of thousands of votes cast were not should have been counted. .
After reviewing several legal filings this week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 27, as well as briefing deadlines. The order means that both the federal appeals court and the state Supreme Court will likely simultaneously hear substantive cases related to the race between Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs and Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin.
Election results show Riggs leading Griffin by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million votes cast. But attorneys for Griffin — a state appeals court judge — argued during formal election protests that more than 60,000 ballots came from ineligible voters.
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Most of those challenged were cast by voters whose registration information did not include a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Since 2004, registration applications have required state law.
The State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin’s protests last month and stood ready to declare Riggs the winner on Friday. Griffin had already gone to the state Supreme Court asking to intervene, but the board took the case to federal court, saying it involved many federal election and voting laws. Griffin wanted the case to stay at the state Supreme Court, which has a Republican majority of justices.
But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Myers ruled that North Carolina state courts were the proper venue to hear Griffin’s arguments and remanded Griffin’s appeals to the state Supreme Court. The next day, Supreme Court justices agreed in a 4-2 decision to block the election certification. Riggs withdrew from the case. The justices asked for minutes to be filed in a schedule that ran through Jan. 24.
Meanwhile, the state elections board asked the 4th Circuit this week to decide whether Myers should have retained jurisdiction over Griffin’s case and ultimately denied Griffin’s request for a preliminary injunction.
Riggs’ attorneys also intervened, asking the 4th Circuit to expedite the trial. Riggs, one of two Democrats on the court and who is seeking an eight-year term, wants a decision in this appeal before the Supreme Court begins hearing its own cases on Feb. 11 this year, her lawyers wrote. The 4th Circuit, in Friday’s decision that did not include any judges, granted Riggs’ request for expedited legal briefing and oral arguments.
It is unclear how separate rulings in the federal and state cases will play out in this election. Griffin’s claims largely focus on state laws and the state constitution. However, Riggs’ attorney and the election board have argued that federal law and the U.S. Constitution play a major role in the case.
Other categories of votes that Griffin disputes were cast by foreign voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were considered residents of North Carolina; and by military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of their photo IDs with their ballots.
Earlier Friday, a state judge denied a request from Republican Party groups and two voters to have ballots cast by voters whose registration information does not include a driver’s license or Social Security number and who appear not to be valid voters be expunged from the final election counts for state elections. in November.
The Democratic National Committee, which joined the state election board in opposing the move, said such a demand was yet another attempt by the Republican Party in recent months to “engage in mass voter suppression.”
