Supporters listen to speeches at a rally for Allison Riggs in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 14, 2025.Makiya Seminera/AP

The unprecedented GOP attempt to overturn a Democratic victory in a North Carolina state Supreme Court race suffered a major setback Monday night at the hands of a stalwart conservative judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump.

In a lengthy ruling, federal District Court Judge Richard Myers rejected the effort by Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin to throw out thousands of votes. Myers ordered the State Board of Elections to certify Democrat Allison Riggs’ 734-vote victory.

On April 11, six months after the election, the Republican-dominated state Supreme Court—still shorthanded from the contested election—had greenlit Griffin’s attempt to invalidate enough ballots from overseas and military voters to potentially reverse Riggs’ victory. Democratic Justice Anita Earls called that decision “a bloodless coup.”

“It’s hard to envision a more ‘severe restriction’ than retroactive invalidation of one’s vote.”

On Monday, Myers overruled the state Supreme Court’s decision. “This case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated........

© Mother Jones