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A Wake County Superior Court judge has ruled against the Republican candidate trying to invalidate more than 65,000 ballots in his race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. But the trial court ruling notwithstanding, the judicial contest is far from over.

The 2024 race between Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs and her challenger, Republican Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, is already the last remaining uncertified statewide contest in the nation.

Multiple recounts have confirmed Riggs' slim lead over Griffin by 734 votes. But Griffin is protesting thousands of ballots over alleged voting irregularities, even though the North Carolina State Board of Elections dismissed his protests due to a lack of evidence.

Griffin succeeded in persuading a majority on the solidly conservative state Supreme Court to block certification of the race. That court sent Griffin's ballot protests to Wake County Superior Court, where Judge William Pittman heard oral arguments on Friday from Griffin's attorneys as well as lawyers representing the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Riggs, who intervened in the case.

In his order, issued late Friday afternoon, Pittman wrote: "(T)he Board's decision was not in violation of constitutional provisions, was not in excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency, was made upon lawful procedure, and was not affected by other error of law."

Pittman's order doesn't mean Riggs' victory will be certified, however. Griffin's political consultant, Paul Shumaker, said the campaign would appeal. "There will be an appeal," Shumaker wrote in an email. "This comes down to having the law applied equally to all voters."

Meanwhile, the state elections board and Riggs have indicated there are issues of federal law they might seek to take up in federal court after the case goes through state courts. For the time, Riggs celebrated the victory.

"Today's decisions denying Judge Griffin's challenges of more than 65,000 ballots are a victory for North Carolina voters and the rule of law. Voters decide elections, and I remain committed to seeing this fight through and upholding North Carolinians' constitutional freedoms."

Republican Griffin has challenged ballots from heavily Democratic areas

Griffin has targeted ballots in three distinct categories. He is seeking the invalidation of more than 60,000 ballots cast by early and mail-in voters who allegedly were not properly registered under state law. The state elections board has said these voters are, in fact, properly registered and eligible to vote even though, in some cases, mostly due to clerical errors, there might be mismatched identification numbers or missing data in their registration records.

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Griffin has also sought to have 5,509 ballots cast by military and overseas voters — drawn from four of the state's bluest counties — tossed because the voters who cast them did not present photo ID, as is required of the state's general electorate.

However, state law these voters — covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Vote Act, or — from presenting photo ID. Furthermore, federal rules covering UOCAVA do not contain a photo ID requirement.

And Griffin has challenged a few hundred ballots cast by overseas citizens who never resided in North Carolina, despite explicitly saying such citizens are eligible to vote.

"There's no question what the rule was when we went into this election," said attorney Ray Bennett, who represents Riggs.

Rusty Jacobs/¹ÏÉñapp

Bennett and attorneys for the state elections board have argued that Griffin is trying to disenfranchise voters by changing the rules after the election.

"It is time for this election to come to an end, and for voters to know that their votes will count in this state if they follow the rules in place at the time of the election," Bennett argued on Friday.

'An attempt to steal the right of people'

A few dozen protesters, including civil rights advocates and voters whose ballots are being challenged by Griffin, gathered outside the courthouse on Friday, to demonstrate against what they saw as an effort to disenfranchise lawful voters.

One of the challenged voters was Rachel Arnold, a registered Democrat from Guilford County, who's on Griffin's list of more than 60,000 allegedly improperly registered voters.

Arnold registered at her current address in 2009 and told reporters she has been a registered voter at different times in three states and never had an issue.

After finding out her ballot was being challenged, Arnold said she pulled her registration records and confirmed that it had her driver's license number and all other requisite information.

"This is absolutely an attempt to steal the right of people to act in their best interest," she said. "And no one should be turning a blind eye to this."

More detail on Griffin's challenges

Griffin's allegations of incomplete voter registrations are rooted in an issue that previously has been reviewed — and dismissed — by a federal court.

The federal , or HAVA, of 2002 mandated that people registering to vote provide their driver's license number or last four digits of their Social Security number if they have either one of those forms of identification. But HAVA also provided alternatives for people who did not.

Until a correction last year, the voter registration form used by the state elections board did not clearly indicate one of those ID numbers was required. Griffin and Republicans have seized on that as evidence there could be some unlawful voters, though no evidence of actual voter ineligibility has been presented.

Elections boards officials also say that discrepancies in voters' registration records — such as misspellings or mismatched numbers — can be traced to administrative and clerical errors.

Furthermore, November was the first major general election where photo ID was required, so voters casting ballots in person or by mail had to provide identification or fill out exception forms with the requested data that got reviewed and verified by local elections boards.

"There is an interlocking and overlapping web of security and reliability built into our election system and it would be entirely inequitable to disenfranchise voters based upon what at most would be technical errors, not a fault of those voters," Special Deputy Attorney General Terrence Steed, representing the state elections board, argued on Friday.

But one of Griffin's attorneys, Craig Schauer, countered that, exceptions notwithstanding, North Carolina voters still must provide certain identifying information to register to vote.

"The fact that there's an exception that allows you to vote if you provided this information and there's a mismatch simply proves that you must provide the information in the first place," Schauer contended. "This is not a waiver of the obligation to provide the information and, nonetheless, be allowed to vote."

As for military and overseas voters, North Carolina's resides in Article 20, Chapter 163, of the general statutes. But rules governing military and overseas voters reside in Article 21A, known as the Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act, which, the state elections board has reasoned, does not contain any photo ID requirement.

Nonetheless, another of Griffin's attorneys, Troy Shelton, argued in court on Friday, the photo ID requirement under Article 20 must be seen as extending to the rules for military and overseas voters under Article 21A.

"Article 21A is not comprehensive, it can't stand alone," Shelton insisted. "It implicitly relies on Article 20 for many of the general rules about absentee voting."

For now, that and Griffin's other arguments failed to carry the day.