Justice Allison Riggs won election to the North Carolina Supreme Court by 734 votes. Her opponent, Judge Jefferson Griffin, refused to concede and instead filed hundreds of election protests, all of which were rejected by the State Board of Elections. The Board explained that throwing out the votes, as Griffin requested, would violate numerous provisions of federal law, including the federal Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the National Voter Registration Act. After the Board rejected his protests, Griffin went directly to the North Carolina Supreme Court—skipping over the state’s trial and appellate courts—challenging the Board’s decision.
The ACLU and ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief on behalf of eight political scientists—Erica Frantz, Tom Ginsburg, Jacob Grumbach, Aziz Huq, Robert Kaufman, Pippa Norris, Kim Lane Scheppele, and Susan Stokes—who are experts in what’s known as “democratic backsliding.” Democratic backsliding is the degradation of free and fair elections by ruling parties seeking to expand and entrench their own power. Our amicus brief frames what is happening in North Carolina as an egregious sign of democratic backsliding rather than a normal legal dispute and sounds the alarm in the voice of scholars and experts who study the subject.
The Board removed the case to federal court, but the federal court, at Griffin’s request, sent the case back to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The Board then appealed that decision to the federal court of appeals, asking the appeals court to step in and put an end to Griffin’s anti-democratic gambit. The federal appeals court decided to keep the case in state court, but said that if there are unresolved federal issues after the case makes its way through state court, the federal court may review those issues.
