Clients working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm hope to intervene in a federal lawsuit tied to North Carolina’s still-unresolved state Supreme Court election.
The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, VoteVets Action Fund, and three individual voters filed a motion Saturday to intervene as defendants in Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin’s lawsuit against the State Board of Elections. Lawyers with the Elias Law Group help represent the retirees and veterans groups and the individuals.
Griffin wants a judge to block the elections board from counting “unlawful” votes in the Supreme Court election. Griffin’s Democratic opponent, appointed incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, has filed paperwork to intervene in the case.
Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million ballots cast statewide. The state elections board has ruled against Griffin’s request to throw out more than 60,000 ballots cast in the Supreme Court election.
“Before voting began in the 2024 election, the rules of the road for casting and counting ballots were set and clear,” according to a court filing tied to the Elias Law Group. “Only after voting had ended, votes had been counted, and it became evident that Judge Jefferson Griffin lost the race for North Carolina Associate Supreme Court Justice, did Judge Griffin choose to file mass challenges to tens of thousands of voters across the state — demanding retroactive changes to election rules and the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters based on these new rules. In other words, after playing the game and losing, Judge Griffin wants to rewrite the rulebook.”
“Judge Griffin’s gambit is now before this Court,” the filing continued. “He claims that North Carolinians who have been registered and voted for years were in fact ineligible to vote all along, that overseas voters who lawfully obtained North Carolina residency through their parents or guardians are no longer permitted to vote in the state, and that military and overseas voters that submitted their ballots as instructed nevertheless should have their votes thrown out after the fact.”
“In short, Judge Griffin seeks to disenfranchise unsuspecting voters who followed the law as it existed before the election and did nothing wrong. Worse still, his requested relief would violate several federal statutes and the United States Constitution,” lawyers for the two groups and three voters wrote.
“Proposed Intervenors seek to intervene in this case to protect themselves from this outright assault on their and their members’ rights,” the court filing added.
Individual voters Tanya Webster-Durham, Sarah Smith, and Juanita Anderson “have each been challenged by Judge Griffin and will be disenfranchised if Judge Griffin succeeds in his quest to change election rules long after the election has concluded,” according to the motion.
US Chief District Judge Richard Myers issued an order Friday denying Griffin’s request for a temporary restraining order in the case.
“A motion for temporary restraining may only issue if the movant makes a clear showing of immediate injury,” US Chief District Judge Richard Myers wrote Friday.
The state elections board indicated “that no election certification will occur until January 3, 2025, or more likely January 6,” Myers wrote. Griffin is the plaintiff and the elections board is the defendant in the case.
“With notice of Defendants’ position, Plaintiff’s counsel responds in briefing that Defendants are ‘poised to certify the election results in a matter of days.’ The statements of counsel in briefing are not ‘specific facts in an affidavit or verified complaint,’ and the court finds that Plaintiff has failed to make a clear showing that he will suffer immediate injury before Defendant can be heard in opposition,” Myers explained.
Griffin filed a complaint last week urging the state Supreme Court to block the state elections board from counting “unlawful” ballots in the race. The elections board responded the following morning by removing the case to Myers’ federal courtroom.
Myers also oversees a lawsuit the North Carolina Democratic Party filed on Dec. 6 dealing with the same ballot challenges Griffin addresses in his complaint. Griffin intervened as a defendant in that case.
Griffin’s complaint highlighted three categories of election protests: voters who registered without providing a driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number, voters who never have lived in North Carolina, and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification.
“In response to these protests, the State Board and the opposing candidate, Justice Allison Riggs, have claimed that Judge Griffin is seeking a retroactive change in the election laws. That flatly mischaracterizes the timeline,” the court filing explained. “Our registration statutes required drivers license or social security numbers back in 2004. Our state constitution has imposed a residency requirement since 1776. And photo identification has been required for absentee voting since at least 2018. The laws that should have governed this election were, therefore, established long before this election. The State Board simply chose to break the law.”
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