WIN: Federal Court Blocks GOP Effort to Overturn North Carolina Supreme Court Election

In a victory for voters, a federal court has halted Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin’s efforts to overturn an election and disenfranchise thousands of voters. A federal judge has ordered the state to certify Democratic Justice Allison Riggs’ victory.

The decision comes exactly six months after Election Day and was handed down by a judge appointed by President Donald Trump.

“Today, we won,” Justice Riggs said in a statement following the ruling. “I’m proud to continue upholding the Constitution and the rule of law as North Carolina’s Supreme Court Justice.”

Griffin tried to disqualify ballots from overseas military voters and U.S. citizens born abroad who voted under long-standing state law. The North Carolina Supreme Court and North Carolina Court of Appeals initially ruled that those voters must cure their ballots by providing photo ID after the fact, or their votes would not count. The federal court has now ruled that changing the rules after the election was unconstitutional.

Judge Richard E. Myers II,  a Trump appointee, ruled that the process violated equal protection because it treated some voters differently than others in the same situation.

“The cure process offends equal protection principles because it treats overseas military and civilian voters casting ballots in certain counties differently than others who are identically situated,” the court ruled, finding the process to be “inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” and therefore could not proceed.

The court has ordered North Carolina to finalize the results based on the original vote count, securing Justice Riggs’ seat on the State Supreme Court.

The Griffin campaign has told a reporter it is “reviewing the order and evaluating next steps.”

“Permitting parties to ”upend the set rules” of an election after the election has taken place can only produce “confusion and turmoil [which] threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,” the judge ruled.