North Carolina Supreme Court rules challenged ballots must remain in close election count

WLOS — The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that tens of thousands of ballots cast in November’s unresolved election for a seat on the Supreme Court must remain in the election count.

The April 11 decision came after the ballots were challenged by trailing Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin.

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However, keeping the ballots in the election count partially overturns the Court of Appeals’ previous ruling, which favored Griffin.

On Friday, a majority of justices agreed with the lower court that additional ballots from two other categories that Griffin contested were wrongly allowed in the tally.

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The ruling states, “The blame rests with the State Board of Elections for failing for years to properly collect those numerical identifiers, not the voters.”

The Supreme Court’s order isn’t expected to fully resolve the race between Griffin and Riggs, which is the only 2024 election in the country that is still undecided.