In his latest court filing last week, Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin asked the state Court of Appeals to reverse a trial judge’s decision to reject his ballot challenges.
The decision, made by a Wake County Superior Court judge in February, dismissed Griffin’s case to throw out over 65,500 votes cast in the 2024 November elections. Griffin is now asking a Republican-leaning state Court of Appeals to overturn the Wake County judge’s decision and invalidate the 65,500 ballots cast by North Carolinians.
Advocates and Justice Riggs’ legal team have asked one of the Court of Appeals judges, Tom Murry, to recuse himself from overseeing the case. According to WUNC, Tom Murry is a top donor in Griffin’s legal challenge. Murry contributed $5,000 to Griffin’s legal fund – Jefferson Griffin Legal Expense Fund.
Murry’s contribution to Griffin’s effort to throw out ballots raises numerous ethical questions around impartiality – particularly after Griffin opposed the idea of recusing Murry.
This comes four months after Griffin filed a lawsuit to throw out 60,000 ballots in order to win the state Supreme Court seat. Official election results show North Carolinians voted for Justice Allison Riggs to win the seat by 734 votes over Griffin. Despite two recounts, Griffin has leveled a series of legal challenges, targeting military servicemembers, Black voters, and ballots from Democratic-leaning counties.
“Judge Griffin’s insistence on throwing out over 65,000 votes disregards the will of the people in service of a political power grab,” stated Kristi Graunke, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, in a press release. “Our judicial system is dependent on respecting the will of the people in choosing their judges. The ongoing effort to disqualify the ballots of eligible voters undermines the constitutional guarantee that ‘political power is vested in and derived from the people.’ North Carolina voters have spoken, it is time to respect their choice and move on.”
Statewide, hundreds of protests and impacted voters have called on Griffin to concede and for the state Supreme Court to certify the race. Groups like Common Cause NC, The American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of North Carolina are also urging the court to protect the will of the voters and reject an attempt by Judge Jefferson Griffin to overturn the election results.
“In North Carolina, voters choose their judges, judges don’t choose their voters,” stated Matthew Segal, co-director of the ACLU State Supreme Court Initiative, in a press release. “Throwing out ballots from eligible voters who cast their ballots in reliance on the procedures prescribed by government officials would be profoundly unfair and a grave violation of the rights of every North Carolinian — Republican, Democrat, or independent.”
The case has made national headlines and drawn commentary from legal experts, election officials, and leaders such as the former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.
According to Mother Jones, the case has also garnered attention from right-wing extremists, including a dark money group funded by billionaire Elon Musk. In states like Wisconsin, the group is running ads to help with voter turnout efforts in support of conservative candidates.
Groups tied to Musk have spent over $4.2 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race alone— signaling that his plans for oligarchy extend well beyond Washington, Mother Jones reports.
“I’ve been tracking these races for many years,” says Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Mother Jones. “I’ve never seen this much interest in a state supreme court election coming directly from the White House”.
