Curiouser and Curiouser: The Disappearing Judgeship
The results of the state’s race for NC Supreme Court is being contested.

Legislative News by Nelda Holder –
Look now! Before it disappears! It’s a Cheshire cat sitting up there in the state judicial tree—grinning at us.

At first I thought it just found our bumbling amusing. We’d asked millions of residents to pick a state Supreme court judge by filling out a ballot indicating their preference. It was a close race, but a winner was pronounced after a recount’s affirmation. Incumbent Allison Riggs (Democrat currently serving by appointment on the NC Supreme Court) had defeated Jefferson Griffin (Republican incumbent on the NC Court of Appeals) by 734 votes—out of a total of 5,540,096 votes cast.
Now, more than two months after the election, it begins to seem that darn cat knew all along that if the “wrong” person won (that would be the person running as a Democrat), state Republicans were apparently contemplating an appeal to take the seat away from the winner (Riggs-D) and give it to their guy (Griffin-R).
And let’s pause now to give a big thank you to investigative reporting—specifically, an article by Doug Bock Clark in ProPublica’s December 23, 2024 edition. According to Clark, and based on a telephone call recorded months before the election, a plan had been floated by a “group of election skeptics based in North Carolina” in the event they doubted any election results. ProPublica notes that one idea discussed was to “try to get the courts or state election board to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots” cast by individuals whose on-file voter registrations are missing a driver’s license number and/or the last four digits of a Social Security number.”
Sound familiar? The results of the state’s race for NC Supreme Court is currently being contested by Republican candidate Griffin, based on his legal attempt to have 60,000 voters declared ineligible due to missing a driver’s license number and/or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Hmmmmm. Seems a lot like that ProPublica report needs to be studied harder.
Indeed, the report notes that there was resistance by two activists on that important call, “including the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network.” Why? Because the data was missing “not because voters had done something wrong but largely as a result of an administrative error by the state. The leader said on the call recording that the idea was “voter suppression” and “100%” certain to fail in the courts.”
A report by WUNC Weekend Edition (January 9, 2025) backs up the voter suppression opinion, noting that “neither state law nor HAVA makes having a Social Security number or a driver’s license number a prerequisite for voting.”
Going According to Plan
Nonetheless, according to a report by Nick Ochsner of WBTV, weeks before the fall election the Republican National Committee and the NC Republican Party sued in federal court to remove nearly a quarter million people from the state’s voter rolls, claiming election officials did not properly collect information at the time of registration. The federal judge “dismissed the federal law claim and sent the remaining state law claim back to state court,” according to Ochsner.
Then candidate Griffin himself sued to invalidate more than 60,000 ballots in his race against incumbent Riggs (according to WUNC Public Radio’s “North Carolina Court’s Conservative Majority Divided on Disputed Judicial Race,” January 8, 2025). His claim was that those ballots were cast by voters “who did not properly register under North Carolina law.” But writer Rusty Jacobs asserts that the issue has to do with voters who registered using a form that predated the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which did not clearly mandate providing the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license.
Jacobs further points out that “neither state law nor HAVA makes having a Social Security number or a driver’s license number a prerequisite for voting.”
The single Republican judge on the court who voted against the challenge, Dietz made the following statement regarding the litigation: “In my view, the challenges raised in this petition strike at the very heart of our state’s Purcell principle. The petition is, in effect, post-election litigation that seeks to remove the legal right to vote from people who lawfully voted under the laws and regulations that existed during the voting process.”
Dietz was joined by Justice Anita Earls (D) voting in the negative; the four other Republican justices endorsed Griffin’s argument, while Riggs—as a candidate involved—recused herself.
The state elections board has appealed the matter to the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Jacobs reported, which “could send the matter back to the federal district court . . . or the matter could even end up back before the state elections board for an evidentiary review.”
A Simpler Solution
There appears to be a simple way to eliminate all this court-based palaver. (There’s that darn cat—grinning again.)
Griffin lost the race by a well-documented, twice counted (or thrice, if you include a third partial count for verification) total.
Conceding is an option when you have lost an election. Actually, it is an expected option. Pulling out a bag of pre-planned tricks just might not be the best thing for North Carolina and its judiciary. In my editorial opinion, there are more important priorities than finding a way to twist an election’s bald results in your favor. I think the cat agrees with ME—and with the majority of NC voters who chose Justice Riggs over Judge Griffn.
Meanwhile, New Governor and New House Leadership
Nice words began the convening of the 2025 “long” legislative session, with some fresh faces from legislative races filling the ranks and—following the longest-serving Speaker of the House, Tim Moore (now US Rep. Tim Moore)—the new Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) took over the House gavel.
Hall wasted no time in addressing the issue that has been staring the General Assembly in the face for months now, stating that, “The number one priority of this body, starting today—because today is day one—is doing all we can to rebuild western North Carolina.”
In the humble opinion of this writer, he’s got a long way to go to catch up, but at least this is his stated priority. We will be watching the specifics here.
Sen. Phil Berger was re-elected to his familiar role as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and also spoke to the priority issue of hurricane relief. Presiding over the Senate will be someone with a familiar political name: Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt. Daddy Jim Hunt, former governor of the state, has this to say about that: “We live in the best state in the nation, and I know Rachel will keep up the work to champion public education, good-paying jobs, and hardworking families.” (Once a politician, always. . . .)
At least Hall, Berger and Hunt had a roof over their heads as they made their inaugural speeches. Newly elected Gov. Josh Stein had to cancel his public inaugural activities on the grounds of the historic State Capitol Building because of the first-time-in-three-years snow in Raleigh. But he did gather together family members and supporters inside the House Chamber for a speech. The partying will be scheduled at some future date.

Photo: Tim Barnwell
Point of note: The old State Capitol Building is near and dear to my Wake County-native heart. My very own great-great-grandfather, as the story goes, was a stone mason from Ireland who was involved in its construction. It remains the active Capitol and a National Historic Site, and housed all of the state’s government until 1888 when the Supreme Court and State Library moved to another building. The General Assembly moved into the current State Legislative Building in 1963.
Nelda Holder is the author of The Thirteenth Juror – Ferguson: A Personal Look at the Grand Jury Transcripts.