Republicans are trying to 'vindicate' a 'very dangerous theory' in NC: analysts

Sarah K. Burris

Feb. 11, 2025, 8:51 p.m.

The Republican candidate who lost a Supreme Court judgeship in the 2024 North Carolina election refuses to quit.

Mark Joseph Stern spoke to Mary Harris for Slate's daily news podcast and highlighted that failed Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin is now suing to eliminate the ballots of 65,000 citizens.

Justice Allison Riggs, the incumbent and a Democrat, won the seat by 734 votes against Griffin. But Griffin intends to take the case to the state Supreme Court to have the ballots thrown out.

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"I want to make sure that we focus on something that I think is important here, which is that this whole theory that you can challenge votes after the fact in this particular way, it was conceived of by a conservative organization: the Election Integrity Network" Harris said. "Is it worth talking about where this whole idea of how to challenge elections came from?"

Stern noted that it's from the "Stop the Steal" playbook.

"The idea is that there are an untold number of fraudulent voters or dead voters who need to be smoked out and have their ballots nullified. And once those ballots are nullified, then the Republican will be the true victor," described Stern. "That was the theory of 2020, and that’s the theory of today."

He confessed that he's not surprised to see some of the same legal players from Trump's 2020 campaign working to help Griffin now.

"Because this is not just about one state Supreme Court seat. This is about so much more," said Stern. "It’s about vindicating the very dangerous theory that you can just alter enough votes after the election to change the outcome. That just feels fundamentally wrong to many, many people, including some Republicans who have spoken out against this. But if you can make it work in North Carolina, you can make it work in other places, including potentially on the national stage in upcoming elections."

Stern said the state court is filled with judges who know both candidates, which creates several conflicts of interest.

He also pointed out that two judges on the case donated to Griffin's campaign, and another judge on the Supreme Court is funding Griffin's legal battle. This presents a case for why the litigation should be moved from state to federal court, he said. However, the federal judges essentially said they wanted to see how it played out in state court before they intervened.

Harris called it akin to a snake eating it's own tail.

Hear the full conversation here.