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U.S.|Thousands of Voters Must Verify Information in Contested Election, N.C. Supreme Court Rules
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/north-carolina-griffin-riggs-election-votes.html
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The number of ballots in question exceeds the slim margin by which the Democrat incumbent, Justice Allison Riggs, won.
April 11, 2025, 5:50 p.m. ET
North Carolina’s highest court ruled on Friday that thousands of overseas and military voters must fix issues with their ballots within 30 days or risk having them tossed out. The decision is the latest twist in a five-month legal battle over a seat on that court, and could potentially overturn the results of the November election.
But the State Supreme Court also ruled that roughly 60,000 ballots at the center of the case — from voters who, through no fault of their own, had information missing in their registration — must be counted. That decision overturned a lower-court ruling.
The 4-to-2 decision on Friday was in response to a plea from Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent in the election. She had challenged a state appeals court decision last week requiring roughly 65,000 North Carolina voters to verify their eligibility within a 15-day window or have their ballots thrown out. Many of the affected voters live in Democratic-leaning counties.
Justice Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member Supreme Court, and has recused herself from the case. Two recounts by the State Board of Elections reaffirmed that she won the November election by 734 votes, but her Republican opponent, Judge Jefferson Griffin, has contested the result. He is currently a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Judge Griffin has argued that about 60,000 of the voters under scrutiny were ineligible to vote because they had not supplied certain required identification when they registered — even though the omission was because of administrative errors. The state’s Republican Party has stood firmly behind his challenge, and the race is the only 2024 statewide election in the nation that remains uncertified.
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