A U.S. District Court judge on Monday ruled that the North Carolina Board of Elections must certify Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs as the winner in the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
The ruling could mark the end of six months of election challenges brought by Republican Jefferson Griffin, who sought to discard more than 65,000 ballots he said were missing required information like their drivers license or last four Social Security digits in their voter files.
After two recounts, Riggs has a 734-vote lead in the race.
But The Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court had opened the door for Griffin to win, by requiring roughly 5,500 overseas and military voters to provide photo ID or have their ballots discarded. Under state law, the elections board had said they did not have to do so prior to the election.
But District Court Judge Richard Myers dismissed Griffin’s efforts to discard ballots. He wrote, "You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done."
He wrote that retroactive invalidation of absentee ballots violates those voters’ rights…and that the requirement that overseas and military voters to provide photo ID violates their equal protection rights.
Myers ordered the state board of electrons to wait a week before certifying Riggs as the winner—to give Griffin a chance to appeal.
