RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Court of Appeals heard arguments Friday in Jefferson Griffin’s ongoing attempt to throw out over 65,000 ballots cast in the 2024 state Supreme Court election, which he narrowly lost to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs.

The case, which has ricocheted between state and federal courts, has persisted over four months past the election and left North Carolina as the only state in the country with an uncertified statewide race.

It has also drawn national attention from critics, who argue that if successful, his case could form the playbook for challenging election results across the country. And in North Carolina, thousands of protesters have rallied against his cause in cities throughout the state.

At Friday’s hearing, a panel of judges — two Republicans and one Democrat — questioned lawyers for the two candidates in a virtual hearing, a rare move for the court, which usually deliberates in person.

While judges expressed skepticism about arguments on both sides, they did not explicitly indicate which way they were leaning, nor did they say when they would issue a ruling.

Regardless of the court’s decision, an end to the dispute may still be months away.

The case is likely to make its way to the state Supreme Court following the appeals court’s ruling. From there, Riggs has said she plans to return to federal court if the state courts rule against her.

The arguments

Friday’s hearing largely retreaded arguments made in previous proceedings about both the merits of Griffin’s individual challenges and the procedural issues raised by a case as unprecedented as this one.

At a broad level, Riggs and the State Board of Elections argue that Griffin seeks to change the rules after the fact to bend the results in his favor.

“For more than 200 years, elections have proceeded in this country under a principle so basic that it is known on every elementary school playground: you cannot change the rules after the game has been played,” said Ray Bennett, an attorney for Riggs.

Griffin’s attorneys, however, argue that they merely seek the enforcement of previously existing election rules which the board neglected for years.

“At bottom, this case is about whether the election was conducted in accord with the will of the people of North Carolina,” said Craig Schauer, an attorney for Griffin. “According to the state board, it can conduct an election how it wants — it doesn’t matter if the board adopts rules that are inconsistent with state statutes or the state Constitution.”

Griffin challenges three categories of voters, the largest of which are those who did not have a driver’s license number or Social Security number in the state’s voter registration database.

He also challenges thousands of military and overseas voters who cast their ballots without providing a photo ID.

While the elections board approved an exemption to the ID requirement for these voters, Griffin argues that this runs contrary to the intent of the state’s voter ID law.

Griffin’s final category of challenges target what he calls “Never Residents.” These are the adult children of North Carolina residents who were born abroad and have not lived in the state.

A state law passed unanimously by the General Assembly explicitly allows these voters to participate in North Carolina elections, but Griffin disputes the legitimacy of that statute.

Much of Friday’s hearing revolved around Griffin’s incomplete registrations argument, which encompasses over 60,000 voters.

The elections board contends that a variety of harmless reasons could account for the missing numbers, including clerical errors and matching issues with the national Social Security database.

In an interview with The News & Observer, Jason Simmons, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party — a plaintiff in Griffin’s case — defended the challenges but said he was “very sympathetic” to these voters “because, again, they did nothing wrong.”

Griffin argues that while those individual voters may have done nothing wrong — and in fact may have voted for decades without issue — the elections board erred by allowing them to participate without collecting the missing information.

Judge Toby Hampson, a Democrat, asked how disenfranchising those voters after the fact would not be a “severe burden” on their right to vote.

“The right to vote is not absolute,” Schauer said. “... Judge Griffin is asking the court to enforce even-handed laws that ensure only qualified voters are allowed to vote.”

Nick Brod, an attorney for the elections board, argued that voters should not be punished for a perceived administrative error when, from their perspective, “they did everything that they were asked to do in order to cast a ballot.”

Judge Fred Gore, a Republican, said he wasn’t sure the court should order a remedy holding voters accountable for errors election officials made, but said he had concerns about the missing identification numbers.

“We’re at 2025, and we still have voter identification error sitting in our state registry,” he said. “I’m troubled by that and the fact that we haven’t been able to get it right up until this point — I see why we have this challenge, to a certain degree.”

What happens next?

Griffin lost his case at the Superior Court level last month, but he now faces a Republican-majority panel which may be more sympathetic to his claims.

The case will likely head to the Supreme Court after that, which has a 5 to 1 Republican majority, with Riggs having recused herself.

If the Supreme Court deadlocks, the ruling of the Court of Appeals will stand.

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