Matthew Segal is co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Supreme Court initiative and filed Amicas Curiae. Easy in Griffin vs. North Carolina Election Commission At the North Carolina Court of Appeals. We also submitted the ACLU Voting Rights Project Easy to the Fourth Circuit of related federal lawsuits. The North Carolina ACLU has signed both briefs.
In democracy, voters are supposed to choose representatives, but not the other way around. In this case, representatives will include the judges of the state that were elected. But for six months, its basic principles were under attack in North Carolina. The attack is over, but the court’s handling necessarily includes important lessons from when democracy is being challenged in other states like this.
In a controversial election last November on the state’s Supreme Court, Democrat Judge Alison Riggs won a 734 vote victory over Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican sitting in the state court of appeals. But the story didn’t end there. Griffin has filed a lawsuit seeking state judiciary to scrap more than 60,000 votes.
Griffin’s lawsuit targeted the North Carolinians who did nothing wrong but instead followed election officials’ instructions. Griffin largely argued that the North Carolina Election Commission accepted voter registration without requiring voters to supply the last four digits of a driver’s license or Social Security number, allowing voters overseas separately to vote military and absentees without supplying photo items. He argued that votes cast by voters in these categories should be abandoned.
Fortunately, on May 5, federal court rejected his efforts, and Griffin chose to make a concession rather than appeal. The end of this lawsuit is welcome, but its existence reveals an important truth. When democracy is under attack, both state and federal courts must come to their defense.
First of all, before the federal court ruled against Griffin, the North Carolina Supreme Court did so in part by determining that the largest category of dispute voters, including false voter registrations, must count. The state court pointed to more than 100 years of precedents from voters who override voters due to false government instructions. In these cases, as explained by the ACLU brief, if election officials allow someone to register and vote, their vote will “not be denied.”
These decisions are consistent with key principles of the state constitution. Like many state constitutions, the North Carolina constitution gives people all their political power. This “popular sovereignty” provision is not merely purity. It reflects the “revolutionary faith” of people, as explained in a paper co-authored by North Carolina Chief Paul Newby. That’s strange, but if, as expressed in the vote, the choice of sovereignty of people could be denied simply because one branch of the government (judicial) (judicial) says another branch (executor) misunderstood them.
But surprisingly, the North Carolina Supreme Court did not apply this principle to overseas voting. These voters also relied on board instructions. However, the state court ruled that these voters would renounce their vote unless they provided their photo ID within 30 days of receiving notification from the board.
The federal district court then intervened. To abandon the vote challenged by Griffin held it for two reasons that it violated the US Constitution.
First, the federal court held that due process provisions in the US Constitution protected all voters who “vote rely on previously established rules.” The North Carolina Supreme Court held that there is no right to count votes if foreign voters do not provide photo IDs, but the federal court concluded that if any, those voters deserve protection in particular.
Second, the federal court held that the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by requiring only a portion of the decision, not overseas voters. By requesting photo IDs only from voters in the counties where Griffin submitted the assignment, not all of the state counties, the federal court explained that the state courts had treated him more unfairly than other voters.
These overlapping but clear court decisions – one federal and one state contain important lessons about federalism and our democracy. Standing alone, neither decision provided complete protection from North Carolina voters from disenfranchisement. The state’s decision saved 60,000 votes, but others were at risk. The federal court announced protections for all challenged votes, but Griffin may have appealed the decision.
That’s how federalism should work. The government system does not assume that state or federal courts are perfect. Instead, by balancing power between state and federal agencies, federalism increases the likelihood that at least one court will step up to protect fundamental rights and freedoms.
As more and more democracies are attacked, its federalist system is becoming increasingly important. In Griffin’s case, certainly, federal courts took a broader approach to federal rights than state courts had on state rights. However, in another state, the role may be reversed if: Federal courts may say they cannot rely on challenged voters, but state courts that rely on interpretations of general sovereignty clauses in their country’s constitution may announce voter protections for sweeps.
The stakes are high. If cases like Griffin succeed elsewhere, and especially if they overturn the election outcome, the damage to our democracy will be serious. Every state and federal courts need every court to prevent that from happening.
Suggested Quote: Matthew Segal, The fate of democracy depends on both state and federal courtssᴛᴛᴇcᴏᴜʀᴛrᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (May 12, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/democracys-fate-despends–state-and-federal-courts