In a state Supreme Court contest that the Democratic incumbent leads by just over 700 votes, the North Carolina state Board of Elections ruled on Wednesday to reject a Republican challenge to toss away 60,000 ballots.
Now that Democrats are up 3-2, the board could decide to certify Democrat Allison Riggs’ victory, removing a significant obstacle for the party in the contentious election.
The winner of the race has not yet been predicted by NBC News.
Two recounts were triggered after Riggs, who was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2023, narrowly defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin, a state appeals court judge, on Election Day.
In a full machine recount, Riggs was 734 votes ahead of Griffin. Although Riggs’ lead was somewhat widened by a second, partial hand recount of the election, the North Carolina elections board does not accept that result as legitimate. The contest received over 5.5 million ballots.
After the election, Griffin’s team filed hundreds of legal challenges in all 100 counties of North Carolina, claiming that about 60,000 persons had cast illegitimate ballots. Many of the accusations focused on individuals who, according to Griffin’s attorneys, did not have a Social Security number or driver’s license number on file in their voter registration records.
Attorneys for Griffin’s campaign claimed in the initial brief to the North Carolina election board that these people could not vote unless they had first officially registered.
Griffin’s protests focused on votes that fit into three groups.
Republicans asserted that the great majority of the ballots in question were cast by voters whose registration records do not contain the necessary information.
At the heart of that group is the fact that voter registration forms that were authorized by lawmakers two decades ago were designed to ask individuals to provide their Social Security numbers or driver’s license information. That requirement was not on the form, though, and tens of thousands of voters chose not to add them in later years. Furthermore, it’s possible that some voters registered prior to the passage of the 2004 statute.
Republicans contested ballots in two other categories pertaining to voters who were located abroad.
On Wednesday, the Board of Elections held consecutive votes in each of the three categories. Party lines were used in the first vote, which was on the issue of driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, and the second vote, which was on a topic pertaining to foreign voters who had not resided in North Carolina. A unanimous decision was made to deny a third vote on a matter pertaining exclusively to foreign voters who did not provide a photo ID with their ballots.
The matter would enter the state court system if Griffin or the North Carolina Republican Party appealed the ruling. The case may eventually reach the state Supreme Court if that happens.
GOP Chairman Jason Simmons of North Carolina issued a statement denouncing the decision and stating that the party would “review the board’s decision and reserve the right to any future actions to protect the integrity of our elections.”
In an effort to guarantee that every ballot in the election was tallied, the North Carolina Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday. The lawsuit essentially aimed to prevent an elections board decision against Riggs by pointing out that states are prohibited by federal law from discarding ballots due to the absence of a Social Security number or driver’s license number on voter registration forms.
Republicans had sued to have 225,000 voters removed from the lists because their registration records lacked the same information prior to the election. The federal court case that was filed was dismissed.
The Texas Supreme Court now has a 5-2 Republican majority. That would remain the case in a Riggs triumph.
The Republican contender in a close state House contest that may decide whether the GOP retains its supermajority in the chamber joined the challenge to the North Carolina elections board board.
The Associated Press has not predicted a winner in the election, but Democrat Bryan Cohn is ahead of Republican state representative Frank Sossamon by less than 300 votes. The GOP’s supermajority in the state House and its ability to overturn the governor’s veto would be formally terminated if Cohn won.
The hearing on Wednesday coincided with the Republican-controlled Legislature’s consideration on another crucial subject.
The board of elections in North Carolina is currently controlled by Democrats. All five members may be appointed by the governor under the existing legislation: two from the opposition party and three from the governor’s party.
However, after overriding Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto, Republican lawmakers later Wednesday passed a bill that, among other things, deprives the governor of that authority.
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