By Gene Nichol

It is dangerous business to steal an election.

Jefferson Griffin has demonstrated a quiet desperation to get his case to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He’s violated every procedural norm to get there. Everybody in the country knows why.

The North Carolina high court has repeatedly proven itself to be the most partisan appellate tribunal in the United States. For almost all our Republican justices, when the demands of law conflict with the demands of party, loyalty to party prevails. Law must step aside. Oaths of office must be violated.

Griffin thinks such a tribunal is the perfect forum for his case. He also thinks he’d be the perfect new member for such an institution. No doubt he’d fit in.

The Riggs-Griffin race is the only statewide 2024 election presently left uncertified in America. There’s only one North Carolina Supreme Court.

Inspiringly, one Republican justice, Richard Dietz, is actually a judge. He has explained, straightforwardly, in dissent, why Griffin is supposed to lose under the law as we know it:

“(Griffin’s) post-election litigation seeks to remove the legal right to vote from people who lawfully voted under the laws and regulations that existed during the voting process.” It would, therefore, “greatly damage the integrity of the electoral system.”

Griffin’s asserted “legal errors could have been addressed long before people went to the polls.” He didn’t do that. He was fine with the rules ‘til he lost. Now, not so much. But, as Dietz indicated, “once people are actually voting it is far too late to challenge the rules used to administer an election.” That is, as Justice Anita Earls put it, unconstitutional “post-election gamesmanship.”

Still, the remaining Republican justices have stayed certification, seemingly anxious to steal the election outright. Chief Justice Newby, sounding like an op-ed writer, whined that folks were blaming Griffin for refusing to accept the verdict of the voters and that there were “concerns” about the decision of the election board.

Justice Phillip Berger Jr. wrote that “when you strip away politics and reality-optional hot takes,” Griffin’s case is about “sweeping bureaucratic incompetence” — doing his best Elon Musk imitation.

Justice Tamara Barringer was more alarmed, claiming the case “shows an existential need to carefully monitor” the election board. She would “suspend the ordinary procedures and proceed to the merits” — rather than let it “twist in the jurisprudential winds.” She’ll deliver for the Republicans any day, any time. Just call. Rules be damned.

Trey Allen, the last member of the unfailing caucus, did say that granting a stay “does not mean (Griffin) will ultimately prevail on the merits.” But if anyone thinks Allen, the most loyal of the hyper-partisans, whose main credential for election is that he clerked for Newby, is going to stand up to the Republicans, he is surely dreaming. Deep and illusory dreams.

So, it’s not hard to see what’s coming. What’s hard for me to understand is that they think they’ll get away with it. That we’ll put up with the trashing of our legal system, our electoral system, our birthright of democracy — just because they pretend to be judges. As Winston Churchill put it, more than once: “We didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy.” These folks need to read a little history. And to get to know their neighbors.

Gene Nichol is a professor of law teaching courses in the constitution and federal courts at the University of North Carolina School of Law.