Some school systems in Western North Carolina are closed or operating on delays Wednesday, Jan. 8, due to winter weather.

• Graham County Schools: Two-hour delay.
• Haywood County Schools: Two-hour delay.
• Madison County Schools: Two-hour delay.
• Mitchell County Schools: Three-hour delay.
• Swain County Schools: Three-hour delay.
• Watauga County Schools: Closed, inclement weather remote learning day.
• Yancey County Schools: Two-hour delay.

This story will be updated

The ongoing saga over the race for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat is in the hands of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, for now.

On Tuesday morning, the state board of elections appealed to the 4th Circuit, just a few hours after a federal district court judge granted Republican judicial candidate Jefferson Griffin’s motion to remand his election protest lawsuit to the state Supreme Court.

Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes, a gap confirmed by two recounts. But Griffin has been trying to have more than 60,000 ballots invalidated — and deducted from the vote count — over alleged irregularities, including purportedly incomplete voter registrations.

Last month, the five-member Democratic-majority state elections board held hearings and dismissed Griffin’s protests due to a lack of evidence of actual voter ineligibility as well as inadequate notice to affected voters.

Then Griffin circumvented the typical state court appeals process and filed a writ of prohibition with the heavily conservative state Supreme Court asking the justices to block the elections board from certifying his electoral loss.

Attorneys for the elections board had the matter removed to federal district court because, they have argued, it raised questions of federal law and threatened to undermine U.S. Constitutional protections against disenfranchisement.

In most of the cases, Griffin has alleged the disputed ballots were cast by voters who did not properly register under North Carolina law. The issue has to do with voters who registered — many years and election cycles ago — using a form that predated the federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, of 2002. The pre-HAVA registration form did not clearly mandate registrants provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number.

Griffin’s protests notwithstanding, neither state law nor HAVA makes having a Social Security number or a driver’s license number a prerequisite for voting.

In cases where elections officials cannot confirm the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number or that person’s driver’s license number — often due to a clerical error — that voter must present a so-called HAVA document, such as a utility bill, when they first show up to vote.

And if a person registering to vote does not have a Social Security number or a driver’s license number, HAVA provides that a state elections administration office must assign the voter a special identification number for the purposes or registering.

However, Griffin’s attorneys countered that while state election law incorporates HAVA the GOP judicial candidate’s case involves a state election and concerns interpretations of state, not federal, law.

Griffin has also protested the counting of hundreds of ballots submitted by some absentee military and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification, even though state administrative code, in accordance with federal law, explicitly excuses such overseas voters from that requirement.

Additionally, Griffin has alleged some ballots should be discarded because they were cast by ineligible voters who live overseas. These protests claim children of overseas voters — for example, missionaries and military personnel — who had never resided in North Carolina, should not have been allowed to vote, though such voters are eligible under state law, again, in line with federal laws protecting the voting rights of overseas citizens.

On Monday, Judge Richard E. Myers II, appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump, ruled in Griffin’s favor and remanded the case to the state Supreme Court “with due regard for state sovereignty and the independence of states to decide matters of substantial public concern.”

Now that the elections board – along with other advocacy groups intervening in the matter – has appealed that remand order, it will be up to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals whether this matter is resolved at the state or federal level.

As for the electoral contest between Justice Riggs and Judge Griffin, the state elections board is poised to certify the results Friday barring court intervention.

Republican judicial candidate Jefferson Griffin is getting the audience he wanted for his claim that 60,000 ballots should be invalidated in his electoral loss to Democrat Allison Riggs. A federal district court judge has remanded Griffin’s election protest to the heavily conservative state Supreme Court, the same court Griffin is trying to join.

After the general election and two recounts — a statewide machine recount and a partial hand-to-eye recount of ballots from randomly selected early voting sites and Election Day precincts in each county — Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, holds a 734-vote lead over Griffin.

The vote count notwithstanding, Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, has fought to throw out more than 60,000 ballots for alleged irregularities despite lacking evidence of any actual voter ineligibility.

In most of the cases, Griffin has alleged the disputed ballots were cast by voters who did not properly register under North Carolina law. The issue has to do with voters who registered — some of them many years and election cycles ago — using a form that predated the federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, of 2002. The pre-HAVA registration form did not clearly mandate registrants provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number.

Griffin’s protests notwithstanding, neither state law nor HAVA makes having a Social Security number or a driver’s license number a prerequisite for voting.

In cases where elections officials cannot confirm the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number or that person’s driver’s license number — often due to a clerical error — that voter must present a so-called HAVA document, such as a utility bill, when they first show up to vote.

And if a person registering to vote does not have a Social Security number or a driver’s license number, HAVA provides that a state elections administration office must assign the voter a special identification number for the purposes or registering.

Griffin has also protested the counting of ballots submitted by some absentee military and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification, even though state administrative code, in accordance with federal law, explicitly excuses such overseas voters from that requirement.

Additionally, Griffin has alleged some ballots should be discarded because they were cast by ineligible voters who live overseas. These protests claim children of overseas voters — for example, missionaries and military personnel — who had never resided in North Carolina, should not have been allowed to vote, though such voters are eligible under state law, again, in line with federal laws protecting the voting rights of overseas citizens.

After the state elections board dismissed Griffin’s ballot protests due to a lack of evidence of improper voting and a failure to provide affected voters with adequate notice, the Republican candidate filed a writ of prohibition directly with the state Supreme Court.

Griffin circumvented the typical state court appeals process and asked the high court to block the elections board from certifying his electoral loss.

Attorneys for the state elections board had the case removed to federal court because, they argued, it raised federal questions about HAVA and other U.S. Constitutional voting rights protections.

But attorneys for Griffin disagreed and argued in their briefs to Judge E. Richard Myers II of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina that the matter at hand concerned an election for state office and unsettled questions of state, not federal, law.

Those arguments carried the day with Myers, a Donald Trump appointee, who, on Monday evening, remanded the case back to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

“Should a federal tribunal resolve such a dispute?” asked Judge Myers in his order, referring to the Griffin’s claims the disputed ballots should be invalidated.

“This court, with due regard for state sovereignty and the independence of states to decide matters of substantial public concern, thinks not,” Myers wrote, answering his own question.

The fact that North Carolina’s registration statute refers to, and aligns with, HAVA, did not sway Myers that the Griffin protests belong in federal court.

“Because Griffin’s first challenge does not require resort to HAVA,” Myers wrote in this order, referring to Griffin’s protests over allegedly incomplete voter registrations, “it does not necessarily raise a question of federal law.”

The challenges to overseas voters who never resided in North Carolina and military and overseas voters who did not provide photo IDs also only require interpretations of state law, according to Myers.

The state elections board was poised to certify the results of the election by Friday barring a court’s intervention. Judge Myers’s order could be appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The general counsel for the state elections board said his office is reviewing Myers’ order.