North Carolina Military and Overseas Ballot Disqualification Challenge

Class action lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters of North Carolina seeking to block the state from disqualifying over 5,000 ballots from military and overseas voters in the 2024 general election for the North Carolina Supreme Court. In 2024, Democratic candidate Justice Allison Riggs won her race by over 700 votes against Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin. Subsequently, Griffin filed election protests challenging over 60,000 ballots cast in the 2024 election. Five months after the election, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ordered over 5,000 eligible voters who cast valid ballots to now cure their ballot within 15 days or be disenfranchised. The state’s highest court extended the cure period to 30 days. The plaintiffs claim that the process of invalidating ballots and requiring a cure process retroactively changes the rules of last year’s election — disenfranchising voters in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. They ask the court to block the state from going forward with the cure process and requiring voters to provide additional verification. They also seek an order prohibiting the state from certifying Jefferson Griffin as the winner of the race.

STATUS: Plaintiffs file their complaint on April 14, 2025. The state election board has not responded yet.