Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin continues to pursue litigation in hopes of overturning the results of the November election he lost to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs. (File photos)
The spouses of two state Republican Supreme Court justices were top donors to GOP Judge Jefferson Griffin in his race to join the court.
Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, is trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs.
He now trails Riggs by 734 votes, but wants more than 60,000 votes thrown out in his attempt to win.
The state Supreme Court may make the final call in the race.
Macon Newby, wife of Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby, and Brent Barringer, husband of Republican Justice Tamara Barringer, each gave maximum individual contributions of $6,400 to Griffin for his campaign to win a seat on the state’s high court.
Brent Barringer also donated the maximum $6,400 to Griffin’s campaign during the primary cycle, though Griffin did not face a primary opponent.
Kelley Dietz, who is married to Republican Justice Richard Dietz, contributed $1,000 to Griffin’s campaign last year.
Barringer said he could not comment. The Newbys and Justice Barringer did not respond to messages.
Spouses of judges and justices are not prohibited from making political contributions, but these donations are in the spotlight now that the state Supreme Court may decide whether Griffin wins his race against Riggs.
Republicans hold a 5-2 majority in the court. Riggs has recused herself from considering matters related to Griffin’s case.
“I think it just speaks to the politicization of the court,” said Briana Brough, co-founder of FLIP NC. Having sitting justices decide a Supreme Court race where their spouses contributed to a candidate “is not the way it’s supposed to work,” she said.
FLIP NC focused last year on electing Democrats in statewide judicial races.
Democratic Justice Anita Earls’ husband donated about $2,700 to Riggs’ campaign.
ProPublica first reported on the donations.
Courts to decide Griffin’s voter challenges
Griffin claims that the state Board of Elections did not follow state law, resulting in more than 60,000 illegal votes.
The case is now being considered by state and federal courts.
WUNC reported that one of Griffin’s colleagues on the state Appeals Court, Republican Judge Tom Murry, contributed $5,000 from his Attorney General campaign fund to Griffin’s legal defense fund.
Murry announced a campaign for Attorney General before he switched to a Court of Appeals race.
In December, the state Board of Elections dismissed Griffin’s election protests.
Griffin then asked the Supreme Court to order the votes he’s challenging thrown out.
In early January, the Supreme Court blocked the state Board of Elections from certifying Riggs’ win. Earls and Dietz dissented. In his dissent, Dietz referred to a principle that says courts should not change voting rules close to an election.
“The petition is, in effect, post-election litigation that seeks to remove the legal right to vote from people who lawfully voted under the laws and regulations that existed during the voting process,” Dietz wrote.
Most of the ballots Griffin wants thrown out were cast by people his campaign claims did not include a partial Social Security number or driver’s license number on their voter registration applications. He claims these voters are not legally registered. Voters Griffin is challenging have come forward in the past weeks to say they provided that information, but it failed to appear on electronic voter rolls due to typos or data mismatches. Many of the people on Griffin’s list have been voting in North Carolina for decades.
He’s also challenging votes from about 5,000 military voters and residents living overseas from four of the state’s heavily Democratic counties because they did not include photo ID with their ballots.
A few hundred challenged ballots were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the state, but have a connection to North Carolina through their parents.
Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed Griffin’s request to order ballots thrown out. It ordered that the case take the traditional route through state courts, starting with the trial court.
Three of the Republican justices, however, seem open to Griffin’s positions.
“There appear to be valid concerns that some of the State Board’s actions in this election may violate the law,” Newby wrote in a concurring opinion joined by Barringer and Republican Justice Phil Berger Jr.
In a 2023 interview with the North State Journal, Griffin called Newby “a good friend and mentor.”
Amy Cox, a co-founder of FLIP NC, said Newby has an obvious conflict of interest.
“It’s no secret that Newby wants Griffin to win,” she said.