The North Carolina Supreme Court on Monday blocked a lower court decision that would have given more than 60,000 voters just 15 days to confirm their eligibility or risk having their ballots thrown out in a closely contested state Supreme Court race.
The order, issued by Justice Trey Allen, a Republican, temporarily halted a 2-1 ruling from the North Carolina Court of Appeals that favored Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin. Griffin, who currently serves on the appeals court, trailed Democratic Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes following a recount, despite initially leading by nearly 10,000 after polls closed on November 5. Over 5.5 million votes were cast in total.
Griffin had challenged the results, claiming tens of thousands of ballots should be invalidated because voters failed to include either a driver’s license number or Social Security number, as required by a 2004 state law.
On Friday, two Republican judges on the appeals court, John Tyson and Fred Gore, agreed the requirement remains law and said the state elections board had not enforced it. The judges ordered the board to notify the affected voters and give them 15 days to correct the issue. The state Supreme Court has now paused that directive.
