Category Archives: judicial elections

North Carolina: “GOP candidate protests the ballots cast by his opponent’s parents in state Supreme Court race”

judicial elections, recounts

WUNC:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Tuesday to certify the 2024 elections, except for a handful of contests under recount and protest. That includes the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court in which the Republican candidate has challenged the validity of more than 60,000 ballots, including two cast by his opponent’s parents.

Republican Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals trails Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, in the race for Seat 6 on the state Supreme Court. But the margin between them— 625 votes — is close enough under state law to require the recount demanded by Griffin.

Griffin’s campaign has also filed protests across the state, claiming tens of thousands of ballots should be disqualified for a host of reasons. The claims include ballots allegedly cast early by people who subsequently died before Election Day, ballots cast by people who haven’t completed the terms of a felony conviction, and ballots cast by overseas citizens who have not resided in North Carolina but whose parents or legal guardians were eligible North Carolina voters before leaving the United States.

However, the vast majority of ballot protests are aimed at what the Griffin campaign claims are cases of incomplete voter registrations. According to those protests, these ballots should be disqualified because the registration data do not include the voter’s driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The basis for this protest is the same as one in a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee claiming 225,000 voters should be removed from the state’s rolls due to incomplete registration. A Donald Trump-appointed federal district court judge dismissed a main part of that lawsuit in October….

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“Riggs’ lead drops by 67 votes as 60 counties complete NC Supreme Court recount”

judicial elections

Carolina Journal:

With 60 of North Carolina’s 100 counties completing recounts in a closely contested state Supreme Court race, appointed incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs’ lead has dropped by 67 votes over Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin. Riggs still leads Griffin by 655 votes as the remaining counties continue their counts.

The count must be complete by Wednesday. Wake, Mecklenburg, and Guilford counties are among the counties yet to report recount results.

Griffin has gained a net of 17 votes among counties that have finished their work, including eight more votes in both Gaston and Person counties. Griffin lost 13 votes in Durham County.

Meanwhile, Riggs has lost a total of 50 votes. She lost 21 votes in Lenoir County and 14 in Durham. Riggs gained six votes in Watauga County.

As the recount continues, Griffin also is pursuing challenges of more than 60,000 votes statewide.

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New Article: “The Brave New World of Judicial Elections: What We Know and What We Don’t”

judicial elections

Charles Gardner Geyh (Indiana University Maurer School of Law) has posted this new article on judicial elections on SSRN:

In this essay, I begin with a discussion of established legal theory, which elucidates the difficulties created by calling upon judges to interpret and apply the law in a democratic republic. Next, I synthesize the scholarship, spanning thirteen books, that explains, defends, and critiques the modern era of judicial elections. Read synthetically, this body of work provides a well-developed, three-dimensional understanding of judicial elections at the turn of the 21st century. At the epicenter of the developments that this literature analyzes are battleground states where well-financed interest groups poured money into supreme court races to people high courts with judges whose perspective on tort liability was simpatico with that of their campaign supporters. That literature also reveals that tort reform campaigns in state judicial races later peaked as spending tapered off in the 2010s, signaling a lull in what leading, good-government interest groups denominated the “new politics of judicial elections.  I argue that this lull ended with the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which heralded the arrival of a new generation of judicial elections in which state supreme courts are becoming war-torn forums for the resolution of deeply divisive policy questions that the federal courts and the political branches of government have been unwilling or unable to address. It is a development that portends to be of unprecedented intensity and poses new challenges for legal theory and the existing judicial elections literature to explain. And it adds new urgency to an increasingly stark choice: whether to fight to preserve the distinctive role that judiciaries have long played in interpreting and upholding the rule of law; or to acquiesce to a new world order in which judges are politicized actors responsive to their constituencies in ways traditionally associated with the other, so-called “political” branches of government.

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“This Election’s Surprising Bright Spot for Progressives Is a Very Big Deal”

judicial elections,

Mark Joseph Stern (Slate) offers a round-up on state supreme court races and analysis.

“Across the country, voters also elected liberal justices to their state Supreme Courts, which function as a key backstop for civil rights and democracy as federal courts lurch rightward. Progressives didn’t win a clean sweep, but they emerged with an impressive scorecard, carrying seats in battlegrounds like Michigan and safely red states like Kentucky and Montana. Left-leaning judicial candidates even prevailed in deep-red Arkansas and Mississippi, bucking the national shift rightward.”

It was not a clean sweep:

  • Republicans secured a 6–1 conservative majority on the Ohio Supreme Court.
  • A liberal lion on the Oklahoma Supreme Court lost a retention vote.
  • “Progressives . . . failed to knock off conservative justices who faced retention elections in several purple states, including Arizona.”
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“Losing GOP candidate for NC Supreme Court challenges 60,000 ballots as recount starts”

absentee ballots, ballot access, judicial elections, provisional ballots, recounts,

News&Observer: Jefferson Griffin, the Republican candidate for North Carolina Supreme Court, requests a recount where he trails by 625 votes while also filing “a series of election protests on Tuesday challenging the validity of over 60,000 ballots cast across the state.”

His complaints, some of which have already been rejected by courts include:

  • “[C]ounties improperly counted ballots from voters who voted early but died before Election Day.”
  • Votes should be rejected from those “serving a felony sentence as of Election Day.”
  • Votes should be rejected from individuals who failed to attach “a driver’s license number or Social Security number” to their voter registrations, even though state law does not require this.
  • Votes from “military and overseas voters who have never resided in North Carolina” should be rejected despite laws that appear to permit this in certain circumstances.
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NC Supreme Court Race–Update

judicial elections, ,

WRAL News: North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, appears to have won her judicial race by “625 votes out of 5.5 million.” There are still some outstanding votes to be counted, but her Republican challenger has invoked his right to call for a recount. This was necessary to meet the legal deadline. Should the additional votes place him in the lead, Justice Riggs still has an opportunity to call for a recount.

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“Georgia Supreme Court Justice Fends Off Challenger Who Made Abortion Rights a Focus”

judicial elections

NYT:

The incumbent in the lone competitive race for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court won re-election on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, fending off a challenge from a former Democratic congressman who had built his campaign in the nonpartisan contest on protecting abortion rights.

Elections for the Supreme Court in Georgia are typically subdued affairs, drawing little attention, much less stirring controversy, as justices rarely face any serious opposition. Such was the case for the three other justices on the ballot on Tuesday, whose elections were uncontested.

But Justice Andrew A. Pinson was in the unusual position of having to fight to defend his seat after John Barrow, who represented Georgia in Congress as a Democrat from 2005 to 2015, entered the race.

During the campaign, Mr. Barrow said that Georgia’s Constitution guaranteed the right to an abortion, which, he argued, was not a political position but simply his interpretation of the law. Last year, the State Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, though a legal fight is ongoing.

The challenge from Mr. Barrow pushed Justice Pinson and his supporters to mobilize an effort that was costly and high-profile, at least by the standards of a State Supreme Court race. Justice Pinson sought to portray Mr. Barrow as a threat to an independent judiciary, arguing that voting for his opponent was tantamount to endorsing “a system of partisan politicians in black robes.”

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“Arizona Supreme Court justice targeted for removal over 1864 abortion ban blasts critics”

judicial elections

Arizona Republic:

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick forcefully decries the effort urging voters to remove him and a colleague from the bench since upholding the state’s 1864 abortion law, arguing his critics are “hijacking the retention process.”

In a 1,500-word opinion piece in The Arizona Republic published Monday, Bolick insults his critics, defends the abortion ruling and the state’s judges, and warns against a politically driven retention system that would be “game-over for the rule of law.”

Those seeking to oust him and Justice Kathryn H. King have turned to the slogan “Vote Them Out!” which, he said, “packs with venom what it lacks in substance.”

The liberal activist group Progress Arizona is advocating their removal, saying that when the court puts “ideology over the people” it is a “civic duty” to change justices.

“The groups opposing us need a serious civics lesson about the role of the courts. Nowhere in their materials will you read about the importance of an independent judiciary in protecting our free society,” Bolick wrote….

Bolick, 66, describes himself as an independent who has set Arizona’s record for judicial dissents. But he is also linked to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the conservative justice who has become a symbol to many of the court’s rightward tilt and who has faced widespread complaints of violating the principles of judicial ethics. Thomas is godfather to one of Bolick’s children, according to the 2000 book “Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade” by Nina J. Easton.

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“2 Liberal Groups to Spend $5 Million on State Supreme Court Races”

campaign finance, judicial elections

NYT:

Two groups on the left with differing missions are joining forces to bolster their preferred candidates in state supreme court races in November, as such elections grow increasingly expensive and politically polarizing.

The two organizations — the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the Democrats’ arm in fighting for state and congressional maps; and Planned Parenthood Votes, the political arm of the abortion health care organization — will initially target races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. The fund, with a budget of $5 million, will provide digital ads along with funding for canvassing and get-out-the-vote operations.

“Our aim is to protect the independence of state supreme courts, to ensure that they are composed of justices who are dedicated to interpreting the law in a neutral way, who will adhere to precedent and who will protect the fundamental rights of all citizens,” Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who is chairman of the redistricting group, said in a statement announcing the joint venture.

Until recent years, state supreme court races were traditionally relatively nonpartisan affairs — in most states candidates are not officially affiliated with a political party — though partisan leanings could be gleaned from judicial rulings. But political interest in state supreme court races has exploded, culminating in a $50 million race for State Supreme Court in Wisconsin last year….

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“Wisconsin Supreme Court justice won’t seek reelection, shaking up the race”

judicial elections

WaPo:

The longest-serving member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-3 liberal majority announced Thursday she would not run for reelection next year, shaking up a consequential race in a swing state and giving conservatives their last hope of regaining control of the court before 2028.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who has served on the court since 1995, told The Washington Post ahead of her announcement that she is confident someone who shares her judicial perspective can replace her after she completes her term. But her retirement sets the stage for an intense race for control of the court two years after candidates, political parties and interest groups spent more than $50 million for a seat on the court in the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

In recent years, the court voted 4-3 to confirm Joe Biden’s win in the state’s last presidential election, ban ballot drop boxes and end a Republican gerrymander of the state legislature. Soon, by a similar margin, it could determine whether abortion remains legal in one of the country’s most closely watched presidential battlegrounds….

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Remedies Scholars Brief Filed in Chisom Judicial Elections Voting Rights Case Before En Banc Fifth Circuit

judicial elections, Remedies, Voting Rights Act

Remedies scholars Doug Laycock, Doug Rendleman, Caprice Roberts and I have filed this amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit, which is considering en banc Louisiana’s challenge to the consent decree in the Chisom case. It was written by a great team at O’Melveny featuring Kevin Kraft, Daniel Mateer, Stuart Sarnoff, and David Kelley.

From the Introduction:

The district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to terminate—but offering to consider modification of—the Consent Decree requiring the State of Louisiana (the “State”) to continue to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (“Section 2”) in an Orleans Parish-based district elections for the Louisiana Supreme Court. By its plain language, the Consent Decree is intended to apply prospectively to “ensure” the State’s continued compliance with Section 2 in the Orleans Parish-based district, ROA.98–99, until the State has made a sufficient evidentiary showing that relief from the terms of the Decree is warranted under Rule 60(b)(5). 

As the State has failed to offer any evidence of future compliance with Section 2, and given recent judicial findings that it continues to violate Section 2 as to other elections, it has not met its burden, rendering its present motion to terminate the Consent Decree inadequate as a matter of law. 

The Supreme Court has required that courts take federalism concerns seriously when a state asks to modify or terminate a consent decree imposed by a federal court. But invoking the term “federalism” does not allow the state to evade having to make its required evidentiary showing. In this case, the district court properly indicated it would consider modifying the Consent Decree in a flexible way in light of federalism principles if and when the State comes forward with actual evidence justifying modification. That day, however, has not yet arrived. 

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Poor Disclosure from Some State Supreme Courts

conflict of interest laws, judicial elections

Fix the Court release:

State supreme court justices have the power to impact federal elections, redistricting, immigration, reproductive rights, gun rights and more, and yet most states are suppressing information about their top judges — either by making it difficult to obtain financial disclosure reports or requiring little to no information to be disclosed — in a way that shields them from accountability, according to a new report released today by Fix the Court.

In short, 24 of the 48 the states that require annual judicial disclosures don’t post their justices’ reports online, and 30 require less information to be disclosed than what the federal judiciary requires…..

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