{"id":8477,"date":"2025-05-06T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T05:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8477"},"modified":"2025-05-06T05:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T05:00:11","slug":"federal-judge-says-results-of-north-carolina-court-race-must-be-certified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8477","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge says results of North Carolina court race must be certified"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RALEIGH, N.C. — <\/span>Disputed ballots in the still unresolved 2024 race<\/a> for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat must remain in the final count, a federal judge ruled late Monday, a decision that if upheld would result in an electoral victory for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs. <\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Richard Myers agreed with Riggs and others who argued it would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution to carry out recent decisions by state appeals courts<\/a> that directed the removal of potentially thousands of voter ballots deemed ineligible. Myers wrote that votes couldn’t be removed six months after Election Day without damaging due process and equal protection rights of the affected residents. <\/p>\n

Myers also ordered the State Board of Elections to certify results that after two recounts showed Riggs the winner \u2014 by just 734 votes \u2014 over Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin. But the judge delayed his decision for seven days in case Griffin wants to appeal the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. <\/p>\n

The board “must not proceed with implementation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court\u2019s orders, and instead must certify the results of the election for (the seat) based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period,” wrote Myers, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in what has been the nation\u2019s last undecided race from November\u2019s general election. Griffin filed formal protests after the election in hopes that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him. <\/p>\n

Griffin’s legal team was reviewing Myers’ order Monday night and evalulating the next steps, Griffin campaign spokesperson Paul Shumaker wrote in an email. <\/p>\n

Riggs was more assured in her statement: \u201cToday, we won. I\u2018m proud to continue upholding the Constitution and the rule of law as North Carolina\u2019s Supreme Court Justice.”<\/p>\n

Griffin wanted Myers to leave undisturbed the state courts’ decisions, which also directed that most of the voters with otherwise ineligible ballots get 30 days to provide identifying information for their race choices to remain in the tally. <\/p>\n

Riggs, the state Democratic Party and some affected voters said Griffin was trying to change the 2024 election outcome after the fact by removing ballots cast by voters who complied with voting rules as they were written last fall. <\/p>\n

Myers wrote that Griffin\u2019s formal protests after the election, which were rejected by the State Board of Elections, constituted efforts to make retroactive changes to the voting laws that would arbitrarily disenfranchise only the voters who were targeted by Griffin. Griffin\u2019s challenges over photo ID only covered at most six Democratic-leaning counties in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou establish the rules before the game. You don\u2019t change them after the game is done,\u201d Myers wrote in a 68-page order. <\/p>\n

\u201cPermitting parties to \u2018upend the set rules\u2019 of an election after the election has taken place can only produce \u2018confusion and turmoil'” that “‘threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,'” he added while citing other cases. <\/p>\n

Democrats and voting rights groups raised alarm about Griffin\u2019s efforts<\/a>. They called it an attack on democracy that would serve as a road map for the GOP to reverse future election results in other states. The state Republican Party said Griffin was seeking to ensure that only legal votes are counted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. — Disputed ballots in the still unresolved 2024 race for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat must remain in the final count, a federal judge ruled late Monday, a decision that if upheld would result in an electoral victory for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs. U.S. District Judge Richard Myers agreed with Riggs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8479,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions\/8479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}