RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina appeals court sided Friday with the trailing candidate in a close state Supreme Court election from November, ruling that tens of thousands of ballots were wrongly allowed in the tally. But they offered some of the voters a way to have their ballot count.
The 2-1 opinion by a panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals could eventually put Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin ahead of Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs. She currently leads in their race by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast.
The judges on Friday found that the State Board of Elections got it wrong in December when it dismissed Griffin’s election protests. The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
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.
Griffin’s postelection protests challenged over 65,000 ballots in three different categories. Griffin currently serves on the Court of Appeals and had recused himself from deliberations within the court, where his colleagues ruled favoring him.
The prevailing opinion declares that the board should have found that ballots from within each of the categories shouldn’t be counted because they failed to comply with state law or the state constitution. The decision also reverses the decision of a trial judge who in February upheld the board’s actions.
“Free elections under … the North Carolina Constitution include the right to an accurate counting of votes,” said the opinion backed by Judges John Tyson and Fred Gore, both registered Republicans. “Griffin has a legal right to inquire into this outcome through the statutorily-enacted and postelection procedures available to him.”
In two of those categories of challenged voters, the judges directed that the state board give voters in two of the categories three weeks to provide their missing information or photo identification. If the information is provided in time, then those ballots would still count, the opinion reads.
In the third category — involving overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. — their ballots should not count, according to Tyson and Gore.
