RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina appeals court judges listened to arguments Friday about whether votes on tens of thousands of ballots in an unsettled state Supreme Court election from November should remain in the tally or could be discarded.
A three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals will decide if the State Board of Elections in December properly dismissed the formal protests of those ballots by Republican Jefferson Griffin. A trial judge upheld the board's actions last month.
After two recounts, Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes from more than 5.5 million ballots cast in the Supreme Court race. Griffin's lawyers have cited more than 65,000 ballots from three categories they argued came from ineligible voters. Removing them from counts could flip the vote advantage to Griffin.
No immediate ruling was issued Friday after 90 minutes of arguments before the panel, which is composed of two registered Republicans and one Democrat.
There's no date set on when the panel will act. But there is pressure to act quickly. The eight-year term on the highest court in the ninth-largest state was supposed to begin in early January. Riggs has meanwhile remained serving in her seat. And Griffin is in his current job as one of the 15 Court of Appeals judges.
While The Associated Press declared more than 4,400 winners in the 2024 general election, the state Supreme Court election is the only race that is still undecided.
However Judges John Tyson, Fred Gore and Toby Hampson rule, their decision will likely be subject to more appeals to the state Supreme Court on which the two candidates are fighting to serve, as well as potentially federal courts.
While Griffin has recused himself from Court of Appeals deliberations in his case, having the three judges rule in a matter directly affecting a colleague and Riggs — herself a Court of Appeals judge briefly in 2023 — is extraordinary.
The panel’s judges asked many questions about the three categories of ballots Griffin challenged.
The largest category covers ballots cast by voters whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Other votes being challenged were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. and military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots.
Griffin’s lawyers have argued that counting the challenged ballots violates state laws or the state constitution, and the state elections board — composed of three Democrats and two Republicans — is to blame by failing to follow them. They want these ballots declared ineligible and ultimately discounted.
“This case is not about changing laws after the election,” Griffin lawyer Craig Schauer told the panel. "It’s a case about enforcing the laws that were already on the books before the election.”
Lawyers for Riggs and the board said the ballots were cast lawfully based on rules that have been applied to elections for years and can't be altered retroactively, and that Griffin failed to comply with formal protest procedures.
“It is time for this election to come to an end and for voters to know that their votes will count in this state if they follow the rules in place at the time of the election,” Riggs attorney Ray Bennett said.
Hampson, the Democrat on the panel, questioned Schauer’s statement that Griffin's protests are only seeking to ensure voting laws are implemented evenhandedly. Hampson said Griffin is challenging only a subset of the ballots cast statewide that, under Griffin's allegations, could be ineligible, raising claims of implementing voting restrictions unevenly and unconstitutionally. For example, some of Griffin's protests apply to early or absentee ballots, or cover votes in a few counties.
“So how does it not impose a significant burden on voters all across North Carolina, where we’re only selectively looking at certain ballots?” Hampson asked Schauer.
Tyson, a Republican, asked questions about a 2005 state Supreme Court ruling that found certain provisional ballots cast in the 2004 election were unlawful even if the state board had determined they would be counted. Tyson’s line of questioning suggested precedent to remove a swath of ballots after an election.
Doesn't the 2005 ruling “say that if a voter relied on board guidance that is contrary to the statute that still is not a reason to excuse the noncompliance?" Tyson asked state attorney Nick Brod, representing the board. Brod disagreed.
Riggs’ allies have held rallies across the state demanding Griffin concede. Before Friday's hearing, several outside groups filed briefs backing the board's decisions, including voters whose ballots have been challenged by Griffin.
FILE - This undated photo provided by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts in December 2024 shows North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin. (North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts via AP, File)
FILE - This undated photo provided by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts in December 2024 shows North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Allison Riggs. (Roger Winstead/North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
