Republican's voter challenge a reflection of his embrace of Confederate symbols: critics

The Republican judge who is seeking to throw out more than 60,000 votes in order to win a seat on the state Supreme Court dressed in a Confederate uniform while a member of a UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity, the Associated Press reported.

Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin was a member of Kappa Alpha, a fraternity that claims Confederate General Robert E. Lee as its spiritual founder, the AP reported. The wire service obtained a photograph of Griffin posing with other fraternity members at its “Old South” ball in 2001 and a 2000 photograph of Griffin and other fraternity members in front of a Confederate flag.

While Griffin told the AP that his attendance at the ball is not a reflection of who he is today, opponents of his efforts to throw out more than 60,000 votes in his Supreme Court race see a clear line between his past embrace of Confederate symbols and his voter challenges. Griffin is suing the state Board of Elections in an attempt to invalidate enough votes to unseat incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. Riggs holds a 734-vote lead, which was affirmed in two recounts. Griffin claims the state elections board is counting illegal votes.

In a statement to the AP, Griffin said his attendance at the “Old South” ball was inappropriate.

“I attended a college fraternity event that, in hindsight, was inappropriate and does not reflect the person I am today,” Griffin said in his statement to the AP. “At that time, like many college students, I did not fully grasp such participation’s broader historical and social implications. Since then, I have grown, learned, and dedicated myself to values that promote unity, inclusivity, and respect for all people.”

Griffin was the fraternity chapter president in 2002.

In a 1998 News & Observer “scholars of the week” feature, Griffin, then a high school student, named Robert E. Lee one of three people on his “ideal guest list.”

The state Republican Party is supporting Griffin’s lawsuit. The party’s spokesman, Matt Mercer, did not respond to an email seeking comment, though in an exchange of insults with former Joe Biden spokesman Andrew Bates on social media, Mercer referred to “visiting the wayback machine.”

The state Court of Appeals heard arguments in Griffin’s case last week. The three-judge panel did not indicate when they would issue an opinion.

Opponents of Griffin’s attempt to erase more than 60,000 votes see a connection between his lawsuit and his past mimicry of Confederate traditions.

“These latest revelations about young Jefferson Griffin only reinforce the deeply problematic character flaws that we see in him now,” said Dawn Blagrove, executive director of the advocacy nonprofit Emancipate NC.

“It appears even as a child and a young man, he cared nothing about the feelings or constitutional rights of his fellow Americans. He was not committed to inclusion. He was not committed to diversity, and he was not committed to seeing all sides of the situation and having empathy,” she said in an interview.

“What we are seeing today about Jefferson Griffin from high school and from college has a straight line to the Jefferson Griffin that we see today who is challenging legal votes of 60,000 people,” she said. “And just like the Confederates lost the Civil War, Jefferson Griffin will lose this election.”

Rob Stephens, an organizer with the NC Poor People’s Campaign, said some would argue it doesn’t matter what someone did when he was 20. But here, “Griffin’s campaign is drenched in that same ideology and worldview,” Stephens said. “He’s living out this fantasy of plantation society where the elite are able to control the lives and the futures of everyone else in the racial caste system.”

Military and overseas absentee voters one of the categories of voters Griffin is challenging. But he’s only challenging those votes from a handful of heavily Democratic counties.

“He wants to go where there are Black voters,” Stephens said. Anyone who denies it “is delusional or is lying to us or lying to themselves,” he said.

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