Attorneys representing the state elections board and Republican North Carolina Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin have agreed on asking a federal judge to set a hearing date early next month in the case involving Griffin's effort to invalidate more than 60,000 ballots in his closely contested race against Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs.
Following a statewide machine recount and subsequent partial hand-to-eye recount of ballots from randomly selected precincts and early voting sites in every North Carolina county, Griffin trailed Riggs by more than 700 votes.
Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, has turned to the courts in his effort to wipe out more than 60,000 ballots for alleged irregularities, including incomplete voter registrations.
Earlier this month, the Democratic-majority state elections board dismissed the bulk of Griffin's ballot protests due to a lack of sufficient evidence, which Griffin then appealed directly to the North Carolina Supreme Court, bypassing the typical appeals path through a state trial court followed by the Court of Appeals.
But before the state's high court could take up Griffin's motion to block certification of his electoral loss and considering invalidating the challenged ballots, attorneys for the state elections board had the matter moved to federal court.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Richard E. Myers II, in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Late last week Myers denied Griffin's request for a temporary restraining order blocking the state elections board from certifying the judicial contest's results.
Myers is the same judge who, in October, dismissed a claim filed by the North Carolina Republican Party, that sought to invalidate more than 225,000 voter registrations on the same grounds as many of Griffin's ballot challenges.
The consent motion submitted in the current matter asks Judge Myers to set a hearing, if needed in the court's discretion, on Griffin's request for a preliminary injunction on either Tuesday, Jan. 7, or Wednesday, Jan. 8.
Some of Griffin's ballot protests went before county elections boards first but now are under review by the state elections board. The state board, according to Griffin's motion in federal court to expedite his cast, has indicated it will not issue a final ruling in all his ballot protests until this Friday.
With notice requirements, that means the state elections board could certify the results of the state Supreme Court race on Jan. 10. Griffin has asked Judge Myers to issue a preliminary injunction in the matter by Jan. 9 "to prevent certification from mooting these proceedings."
