May 5 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday ordered the North Carolina Election Commission not to abandon votes voted by voters in a close race for the state’s Supreme Court seat in November, proving a seat in a Democrat’s justice election victory.
U.S. District Judge Richard Myers in Raleigh was on the side of Justice Allison Riggs as Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican who has taken over Democrats by 734 votes, declared that he could not “change the rules of the game after they have changed.”
Myers, appointed by Republican President Donald Trump in his first term, ruled on April 11 after the North Carolina Supreme Court issued an order to vote potentially thousands of votes by military and overseas voters.
The top courts in Republican-controlled states have rejected Griffin’s bid to vote more than 60,000, but said there is a small set of foreign voters who have challenged the state law obligations required to verify eligibility within 30 days by not providing photo identification as needed.
The board said plans to follow would affect up to 1,675 voters, but Griffin argued that thousands more should be in question. Riggs urged Myers to prevent what he called an unprecedented legal effort to overturn the election.
“The lawsuit concerns whether the federal constitution changes election rules after fact and allows those changes to be retroactively applied to only selected groups of voters, and in doing so, treating voters different from other similarly circumstantial individuals.”
He said no, as he concluded that allowing the state Supreme Court decision to take effect violates the rights of equal protection and legitimate processes for voters under the US Constitution.
Democrats welcomed the decision. The decision praised the Rig in an X social media post called “a victory for North Carolina voters.” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said the ruling “needs to end Republicans’ attempts to overturn free and fair elections.”
Myers suspended the order for seven days so that Griffin could pursue appeal. According to Griffin’s campaign, his legal team said he is considering and evaluating the next steps.
Riggs is competing for an eight-year term in the High Court after the company was appointed to the 2023 court by Democrat Roy Cooper to fill the vacant seats in the seven elected courts.
Griffin, a member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, had nearly 10,000 votes ahead of Riggs hours after the polls ended on November 5th, but that lead fell as more votes counted. Over 5.5 million votes were held.
The court has a 5-2 Republican majority. Riggs will be able to continue serving in his current position until the election conflict is resolved.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond of Boston, edited by Leslie Adler and Michael Perry)
