A conservative state judge in North Carolina who attempted to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters in order to win a state Supreme Court race against a liberal incumbent has finally conceded the election, more than six months after it initially took place.

Last November, Judge Jefferson Griffin lost to Justice Allison Riggs by a mere 734 votes. After recounts affirmed her win, Griffin filed a lawsuit seeking to challenge the legality of around 65,000 ballots, including those of state residents and active military members currently living overseas (a voting method Griffin himself has utilized in the past).

After months of litigation, federal Judge Richard Myers of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled on Monday that Griffin’s legal argument to retroactively change election standards in order to toss out those votes was unconstitutional, and that

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