The Griffin case will still bring deep consequences for North Carolina | Opinion

North Carolina just dodged a political disaster.

After months of legal limbo and a federal court’s sharp rebuke, Judge Jefferson Griffin conceded his close race for the state Supreme Court on Wednesday. His opponent, Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, can now be certified the winner. At long last, it’s over.

But the road that brought us here caused lasting damage. The debacle injected doubt into the judiciary and may have redefined how close races get decided in North Carolina.

We avoided catastrophe — barely. But the consequences will be with us for a long time.

What nearly happened

This might all get glossed over now, but it’s not hard to see what could have happened.

Before the federal courts stepped in — through a judge appointed by President Donald Trump, no less — Griffin’s path to victory was real. The Court of Appeals had ruled in his favor, so even a tie vote at the state Supreme Court could have handed him the seat by throwing out thousands of ballots cast in good faith.

That wasn’t a technical challenge. It was an underhanded attempt to overturn the result of an election.

Had it succeeded, the blow to public trust in government would have been immediate and severe. It would have confirmed every worst suspicion that judges are just partisan actors.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen. But the idea is out there now — and it’s not going away. There’s no catastrophe yet, but we’re closer than ever to one.

A new precedent we don’t want

Challenging close elections is nothing new. But Griffin’s challenge went far beyond the norm, seeking to disqualify votes using legal arguments never tested in court. It wasn’t a defense of election integrity. It was a cynical gamble.

The concern now is that this becomes routine. There’s reason to worry that we’ll never fully return to an Election Day where the results are clear, the losers concede, and the process is trusted. The new playbook may be to drag things out in court, hoping for a favorable bench to deliver a win. Activists on both sides will expect it.

While this case was unprecedented, it may have just set a new precedent.

And it hurts the party that started the whole thing the most. The long-standing conservative advantage in judicial races is at risk. Over the past decade, Republican candidates built a reputation as serious-minded referees—judges who applied the law without twisting it to fit their worldview.

Griffin’s case undermined that image, handing Democrats a powerful talking point as they work to flip the court. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Democratic Justice Anita Earls as the frontrunner to keep her seat next year.

What it means to lose trust in the judiciary

But the deeper worry isn’t partisan at all. It’s about losing trust in the judicial system, something that’s not just an abstract principle.

When people stop believing in judicial neutrality, they stop seeing rulings as legitimate. Every decision becomes a political act. They tune out the legal reasoning and focus only on the outcome.

That shift doesn’t just shape public perception. It warps how campaigns are run. It invites chaos every time a redistricting map is redrawn or a ballot dispute emerges. It ramps up the “us versus them” mentality and turns everything into a nasty, partisan fight. It makes good government all that much harder.

Once lost, trust is hard to rebuild — not because people stop voting, but because they stop believing that the law matters more than party affiliation.

That’s the deeper damage of the Griffin case. Even though the challenge failed, it handed ammunition to those who see judges as political actors. And it made it harder for the best justices, the ones who actually follow the law, to be taken seriously.

The silver linings

That includes people like Justice Richard Dietz, who offered a rare moment of judicial clarity. In an early opinion, he rightly criticized the State Board of Elections for decisions that likely stray from the law but affirmed the clear boundary: You don’t rewrite the rules after the election is over.

That’s exactly the right standard — and one of the few silver linings from this ordeal. The State Board of Elections is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves.

The General Assembly now has every reason to fix the gaps this case exposed. Clarify voter ID enforcement. Define residency standards. Demand transparency. There’s no excuse not to act.

This moment came dangerously close to breaking something foundational. But it doesn’t have to go to waste.

Because next time, we may not be so lucky.

This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 12:28 PM.