NC Republican Supreme Court candidate sues amid recount rumors

On Monday, Republican candidate for North Carolina Supreme Court Jefferson Griffin sued the State Board of Elections, claiming that the board has failed to furnish him with election results in a timely manner, preventing him from meeting the deadlines for protest filings.

After all provisional and outstanding absentee ballots were tabulated, Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs led the high court election by 623 votes. The margin of victory was razor-thin, according to the News Observer.

Tuesday at 5 o'clock is the deadline for election protests, which include claims that election laws were broken, and Tuesday at noon is the deadline for second-place candidates to ask for a recount in their race.

Griffin, who joined the North Carolina Republican Party in suing, claims he missed key deadlines because the board was too slow to give him certain documents.

From The Suit

“Defendants’ failure to provide the requested information as required by the Public Records Act is, in effect, a denial of plaintiffs’ request, and will cause plaintiffs irreparable harm,” the lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, says.

The data were requested by Griffin's campaign over the weekend and are now due by 7 a.m. on Monday, according to Pat Gannon, a spokesperson for the State Board of Elections.

“The law does not require that, but they filed a lawsuit this morning anyway,” he said in a statement.

“The state board provided the requested records today. In fact, the lawyers for this campaign were informed this morning that the records would be provided today, but they served the agency with the lawsuit anyway. In sum, this lawsuit is thoroughly unnecessary.”

Campaign's Requests

At least ten public records requests were made to the state board by Griffin's campaign in the past three weeks, and the board claims to have fulfilled or partially fulfilled all of them. A "formal follow-up" was requested over the weekend, as stated in the lawsuit.

Griffin specifically asked for a complete list of all voters with felony records, a complete list of all voters who have passed away, a list of all voters who were suspected of voting both in-person and absentee, and a list of all voters who used curbside voting, according to his lawsuit.

Legal disputes about the outcome of the race may use that data in the future.

NCGOP's Take

“The State Board of Elections has not earned any benefit of the doubt regarding their actions and their slow walking of critical information against increasingly tighter time frames illustrates why this lawsuit was filed,” NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons said in a statement.

“We will keep all options available as needed to ensure their compliance with state law.”