'He was trying to jury rig them': Lawyers cheer as Republican judicial candidate concedes

On Wednesday, conservative North Carolina state Supreme Court judicial candidate Jefferson Griffin finally conceded to Justice Allison Riggs after he lost his bid in court to exclude votes from the election.

It has been six months since Griffin lost the election by 734 votes, and he has continued to battle in the courts.

"The thing about Griffin's judicial challenge that made it really contemptible wasn't the fact that he raised it—it was a legitimately close race—but the fact that he leveled his challenge primarily at 6 counties that leaned Dem. He wasn't enforcing a rule, he was trying to jury rig them in his favor," said Owen Barcala, a civil litigator.

"The federal court found on Monday that granting relief based on the scope of Griffin's challenge was equivalent to letting him hold the pen to draw the line around who could vote," Barcala added. "I mean, it was contemptible for other reasons, too. This one just really gets me."

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Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer covering the courts for Slate, pointed to three other conservatives on the state court, he said, who were complicit in the effort to "steal" the election from Riggs.

"Three justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court who tried to steal this election for Griffin are up for election in 2028: Paul Newby, Phil Berger Jr., and Tamara P. Barringer. When Election Day comes around, I hope the state's voters remember what these lawless partisans tried to do here."

"And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Phil Berger Jr. refusing to recuse when his father was a named party in cases before the court is beyond unacceptable," said Florida ACLU staff attorney Jerry Edwards on Bluesky.

Lawyer Adam Cohen remarked, "The implications of Allison Riggs defeating Jefferson Griffin in North Carolina are HUGE. Democrats now control the state’s Supreme Court. The GOP won’t be able to gerrymander election maps. So perhaps Dems can take enough House seats to control the lower chamber."