Justice Riggs (and Others) Go to Fourth Circuit in an Emergency Effort to Stay the Federal District Court Ruling Allowing Steps Toward What is Likely an Unconstitutional Attempt to Redo State Judicial Election

Riggs’ case is assigned number 25-1397 in the Fourth Circuit. There are three other requests for stays from other parties that will likely be consolidated.

I wrote at Slate about the disaster of the district court’s order:

In a preliminary order issued over the weekend likely designed to split the baby, a federal district court in North Carolina has told North Carolina election officials that they should follow a state court’s ruling to figure out which of thousands of military and overseas ballots cast by North Carolina voters should be thrown out in a dispute over the winner of a November state Supreme Court election. But the federal court also told election officials not to certify the winner of that election until it can decide if the state court–ordered remedy is unconstitutional.

This is a recipe for disaster. The federal court should have heeded the advice of Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case about not allowing a questionable redo of vote totals to be announced before there’s been a ruling on the legality of the redo. The judge’s order in North Carolina could well lead people to believe the state Supreme Court election was stolen no matter what happens.

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