'Ready to launch': Ex-justice details 'litigation strategy' behind GOP effort to overturn NC election

06 February

In North Carolina, Republican Jefferson Griffin and his allies are trying to overturn the results of a state supreme court race that he narrowly lost to incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs in 2024. Griffin is urging courts to throw out tens of thousands of votes on technicalities, and even though he hasn't had much success so far, the election results remain uncertified.

Former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Orr is vehemently critical of Griffin's efforts in an op-ed published by MSNBC on February 5, warning that it exemplifies a broader election denial strategy in the GOP.

"It is, of course, important whether Republican litigation can overcome a slim winning margin for incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs," Orr argues. "North Carolina Democrats already see the 5 -2 conservative Republican majority on the State Supreme Court as a daunting roadblock to challenging legislation coming out of the Republican-controlled General Assembly. But even if Riggs' victory is sustained, that Republican majority on the Court remains virtually guaranteed for the next four years."

Orr continues, "So why is the Republican National Committee — now more than ever under the thumb of Donald Trump — pouring literally millions of dollars into the litigation to help the GOP candidate, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin? What's going on here?"

The retired justice emphasizes that Republican efforts to overturn the results of that 2024 election have "very little to do with the (North Carolina) State Supreme Court or Griffin's desire to move up the judicial ladder."

"Republicans' litigation strategy was in place long before any votes were cast in the 2024 election," Orr explains. "During and after the 2020 election, the Trump team learned that a clown car of lawyers who didn't know what they were doing, complete with spurious legal theories, would only result in losing. Thus, over the past four years, the Trump team moved to a different strategy. An all-star cast of high-paid lawyers with silk stocking firms was put together to do the bidding of Trump's political team."

According to Orr, Republican efforts in North Carolina really have more to do with President Donald Trump than they do with Judge Griffin.

"What this all signifies is that the RNC and North Carolina Republicans had in place a litigation strategy on a broad, sophisticated scale ready to launch if Trump needed it to secure a win through the courts," Orr warns. "That strategy, post-2024, has implications going forward in close elections in any states that the RNC and Trump deem worthy of challenging, including U.S. House and Senate races in 2026. If they can't win at the ballot box, then winning in the courts with selective comprehensive data and topflight legal teams will be their go-to strategy." Orr adds, "The fight over the North Carolina Supreme Court race is just a preliminary test run, foreshadowing a far bigger 'elephant' in the years ahead."

Former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Benjamin F. Orr's full op-ed for MSNBC is available at this link.

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