A federal district court judge has denied Republican Jefferson Griffin's request for a temporary restraining order in his bid to block the North Carolina State Board of Elections from certifying his electoral loss in a race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
That's strike one in federal court for Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, who trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by more than 700 votes following two recounts in the tight race for the associate justice seat.
Griffin is protesting more than 60,000 ballots in the statewide contest over alleged irregularities, including purported incomplete registrations. The voters swept up in the wide net of Griffin's protests included registered Democrats, Republicans, Riggs' parents, and an editor at WUNC.
After the state elections board rejected Griffin's protests due to a lack of sufficient evidence and a failure to give affected voters adequate notice, the GOP candidate turned to North Carolina's solidly conservative Supreme Court—the one he wants to serve on—for help. Justice Riggs, Griffin's opponent in the state Supreme Court race, immediately recused herself.
Griffin filed what's known as a writ of prohibition, asking the high court to block certification of the election, and to invalidate the challenged ballots.
But, on Thursday, the state elections board had the case, which implicates federal election laws, removed to U.S. District Court.
It has been assigned to Judge Richard E. Myers II, who was appointed to the federal bench by Pres. Donald Trump. In late October, Myers dismissed a claim involving alleged incomplete voter registrations, similar to the grounds for most of Griffin's protests, that had been filed by the North Carolina Republican Party.