A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Friday that more than 65,000 votes cast in the contested race for the state Supreme Court in 2024 must be recounted and verified — a win for the Republican candidate in the razor-thin, disputed contest and a decision that could potentially tip the election results in his favor.
In the ruling, the Republican majority involved in the decision ordered that a group of more than 65,000 voters, whose eligibility was challenged by Republican Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin and his lawyers, now have 15 business days to provide state elections officials with the necessary proof of identity that would verify their votes. The court ruled that any voters who don’t respond will not have their votes counted in the race between Griffin and Democrat Allison Riggs, which is still caught in legal battling five months after Election Day.
The arduous task of verifying those voter identities will fall on the North Carolina State Board of Elections. And the decision sets up an appeal to North Carolina’s highest court, the state Supreme Court — the body that the winner of this election will join.
“The inclusion of even one unlawful ballot in a vote total dilutes the lawful votes and ‘effectively disenfranchises’ lawful voters,” the Republican majority on the three-person panel wrote in its opinion. “Post-election protests protect against this risk of vote dilution by enabling candidates and voters to rigorously investigate the election process, identify and challenge unlawful ballots, and ensure those ballots are not counted.”
The one Democratic judge involved in the state Court of Appeals’ decision said the majority’s ruling amounted to “changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes” and called the majority’s ruling an “an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution.”
The latest decision overturns a ruling by a lower state court from February that had effectively dismissed the case.
Source: NBC News