'Existential threat': NC justice just explains why she's 'fighting tooth and nail' to protect victory

The 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court race proved to be a real nail-biter, with Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs defeating her GOP challenger, Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin, by only 734 votes. But Griffin never conceded defeat, hoping to overturn the election results by getting more than 60,000 votes thrown out.

In an interview with The Guardian published in Q&A format on April 15, Riggs discussed her battle to hold onto her election victory. And she stressed that this election is about much more than a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court — it is about Republicans' willingness to honor election results.

Riggs told The Guardian, "I worry that this is honing a playbook to be used in the future, that people in power hold on to power by selectively challenging election outcomes that they don't like…. We've been trying to communicate with folks that this is not just a North Carolina problem. This is an existential threat to democracy."

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Riggs continued, "Remember: in North Carolina, Donald Trump won. No one was fussing about that. If people in power can decide, 'Oh, this election law was in place, but I don't like it any more. And if I change that rule, then a different person wins the election'.… Democracy cannot exist in those conditions."

Riggs emphasized that she is "fighting tooth and nail" to protect her election victory because if Griffin takes that North Carolina Supreme Court seat, it will give the green line to "changing election rules after elections to manipulate outcomes."

"I worry that this is honing a playbook to be used in the future, that people in power hold on to power by selectively challenging election outcomes that they don’t like," Riggs told The Guardian. "At core, I believe that people get to decide elections. That in a democracy, in a country that holds on to the ideals that we hold on to, that people get to decide who wins, not politicians, not people in power, not courts."

Riggs added, "It's the actual voters…. If folks want to pick a fight with the wrong person, I will not back down from defending the fundamental right to vote. There is no universe in which I yield an inch on this."

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Read The Guardian's full interview with Allison Riggs at this link.