On January 23, 2026, District Judge Terrence W. Boyle entered a final judgment in Ortiz v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, No. 5:24-cv-00420 (E.D.N.C.), holding unconstitutional the Board’s failure to certify the Justice for All Party (“JFA”) as a new political party in the 2024 presidential election.
CCD’s client Dr. Cornel West formed JFA in support of his 2024 presidential campaign. The Board declined to certify JFA as a political party, despite its full compliance with North Carolina law, because a majority of the Board concluded that JFA was not a genuine political party. In the majority’s erroneous view, qualifying a presidential candidate for the ballot is somehow an improper purpose for forming a political party.
In August 2024, Judge Boyle entered a preliminary injunction directing the Board to certify JFA and place Dr. West on North Carolina’s ballot as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
After the election, the Board moved to dismiss the case as moot. It argued that the passage of the election meant the Court could not grant further relief.
CCD opposed the Board’s motion, arguing that a final judgment was necessary because the Board has a history of failing to certify new parties that qualify for North Carolina’s ballot. This history, CCD argued, demonstrates that the case is not moot because it is “capable of repetition yet evading review” — an exception to mootness for disputes that happen too quickly to be fully litigated before they are over. Election law cases are a typical example.
In entering his final judgment, Judge Boyle agreed: “[T]his very case is a repetition of the unconstitutional conduct at issue in North Carolina Green Party v. North Carolina State Bd. of Elections,” he reasoned, and concluded, “this case falls in the mootness exception for wrongs capable of repetition but evading review….”
CCD represented the North Carolina Green Party in the prior case, in 2022, when the Board failed to certify it for the ballot despite its full compliance with North Carolina law. In that case, the federal court granted a preliminary injunction ordering the Board to place the Green Party candidates on North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot. Then, after the 2022 general election, the Court dismissed the case as moot.
CCD argued that a final judgment was necessary in Ortiz to prevent the Board from continuing its unconstitutional failure to certify new parties that qualify for North Carolina’s general election ballot.
Fortunately, this time Judge Boyle agreed.