Why Is North Carolina’s State Supreme Court Race Still Undecided?
While the dust settles on the outcome of the presidential race, North Carolinians are still waiting to see who’ll sit on the state’s highest court.
Justice Allison Riggs, one of two liberals on the seven-member court, is locked into a tight race with appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin (R). Griffin was leading on Election Day but was surpassed by Riggs, who’s ahead by a few hundred votes.
The race isn’t North Carolina’s first judicial match to span several weeks. In the 2020 general election, now-Chief Justice Paul Newby (R) beat then-incumbent Justice Cheri Beasley (D) by just 401 votes. That race also involved a recount and didn’t conclude until December of 2020, when Beasley conceded.
On Tuesday, Griffin requested a recount. That likely didn’t surprise Riggs, whose campaign said they were anticipating a recount to be called. “Recounts are a normal part of election processes and show our democracy at work,” campaign manager Embry Owen said in a statement Monday.
Statewide candidates can seek a recount if there are 10,000 votes or less between the first- and second-place candidates. It must be in writing and received by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) no later than noon Nov. 19.
“At the time of writing this letter, the vote margin between me and my opponent, Associate Justice Allison Riggs, stands at 623 votes,” Griffin wrote in a letter shared on X, addressed to NCSBE Executive Director Karen Bell.
After Election Day in North Carolina, the “canvassing period” begins for the state’s 100 counties. That’s when county elections boards count absentee ballots and review provisional ballots to determine whether they should be included in the total. Ten days after the election, each county is expected to hold a canvass meeting where they’ll certify the results.
But NCSBE said on Friday that several county boards would not complete their election canvass settings on Friday and would “resume their work to certify 2024 general election results on Monday.”
“Most of the 100 county boards completed their canvasses on Friday,” NCSBE added. “However, it is not unusual for a small number of the bipartisan boards of elections to need more time, given the extensive amount of work that must be done after Election Day to certify an election.” More than 5.7 million ballots were cast.
Recounts will begin on Wednesday, Nov. 20 and will be completed by Nov. 27, according to a Nov. 15 memo Bell sent to county elections boards. Recounts are open to the public, the memo states, and “any person may attend the recount,” including the candidates and the media.
On Monday, Griffin sued NCSBE over requests he made to the board for voting-related data. Griffin wanted the board to send him lists of “conflict voters” (voters suspected of casting a ballot in person and via absentee). He also asked for lists on how many voters have felony convictions.
A board spokesman told the Carolina Journal the complaint is “unnecessary.” Democracy Docket reached out to the board for comment.
“The lawyers for this campaign demanded over the weekend that the requested records be produced by 7 a.m. today,” Gannon told The Journal. “The law does not require that, but they filed a lawsuit this morning anyway.”