Quick Summary: North Carolina ‘Never Resident’ Voting Dispute Leaves No Easy Answers
- A federal judge halted efforts to discard ‘never resident’ ballots in NC’s 2024 Supreme Court race, spotlighting the issue.
- Allison Riggs led Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes, with ‘never resident’ voters at the center of the challenge.
- Judge Richard Myers ruled that the post-election remedy violated federal protections, ensuring all ballots counted.
- Public analysis showed 25% of challenged voters had lived in NC, questioning the ‘never resident’ label.
- The legal debate now focuses on whether NC’s constitution restricts voting to bona fide residents.
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The battle over ‘never resident’ voters in North Carolina has reignited, with a federal judge’s ruling casting a spotlight on this contentious issue. In a dramatic turn, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Myers halted efforts to discard these ballots in the razor-thin 2024 state Supreme Court race, where Allison Riggs narrowly defeated Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes.
The controversy centers on voters born abroad to North Carolina-connected families, who have voted under a 2011 state law. Myers’ ruling emphasized that implementing a post-election remedy would violate federal protections, ensuring that all ballots, including those of military and overseas voters, would be counted.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s analysis revealed that 25% of the challenged ‘never resident’ voters had lived in North Carolina, challenging the assumption that they were ineligible. This finding has fueled the ongoing legal battle, with Republican-aligned plaintiffs arguing that the state’s constitution limits voting to bona fide residents.
As the legal conflict intensifies, the North Carolina State Board of Elections seeks a three-judge panel to decide the fate of ‘never resident’ voting. This case could redefine voter eligibility in future state elections, marking a pivotal moment for North Carolina’s electoral landscape.
The biggest recent turn in North Carolina’s “never resident” voting fight is that a federal judge’s May 5, 2025 order effectively stopped the effort to throw out those ballots in the 2024 state Supreme Court race, but the issue has now re-emerged in a fresh Carolina Journal-reported lawsuit that could reshape who may vote in future North Carolina elections. Public-data analysis by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice found that 25% of the challenged “never resident” voters—65 out of 260 unique voters after seven duplicates were removed—showed one or more indicators that they had in fact lived in North Carolina.
Carolina Journal’s recent report says the board’s filing leans heavily on state constitutional authority over voter qualifications, even after the federal ruling ended the 2024 race fight and Riggs was eventually certified. In the 2024 race for North Carolina Supreme Court Seat 6, Allison Riggs led Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes after two recounts, 2,770,412 to 2,769,678, and Griffin’s challenge swept in several hundred “never resident” voters—people born abroad to North Carolina-connected families who had voted under a 2011 state law that had been used for more than 40 elections.
On May 5, Myers issued the federal order blocking implementation of the post-election ballot rejection process and directing certification of the race after seven days absent further successful appeal. By May 7, Griffin said, “While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding,” and he did not appeal, effectively conceding.
That finding undercut the assumption that all of the targeted voters were true “never residents,” and the group said the State Board of Elections’ confidential data could reveal even more. On April 16, Griffin sought to stop the board from counting ballots cast by voters who could prove prior North Carolina residence and to expand the “never resident” challenge statewide.
The state board had indicated it would review whether challenged voters had actually lived in North Carolina and allow those ballots to remain if they had, but Griffin went back to court on April 16 seeking to block that review and expand the challenge from 53 counties to all 100 counties. Democracy NC said Griffin was trying to disenfranchise about 5,700 voters across categories if his requested expansion succeeded, while the “never resident” subset alone stood at 260 unique challenged voters in the public analysis.