North State Journal: “North Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday that tens of thousands of cast ballots challenged by the trailing candidate in November’s unresolved election for a seat on the court must remain in the election count.
The decision partially overturns last week’s ruling by a panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals that had favored Republican Jefferson Griffin, who closely trails Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs.
But a majority of justices — all registered Republicans — let stand the lower court’s determinations that additional ballots from two other categories that Griffin contested were wrongly allowed in the tally. Some of these voters — potentially thousands who serve in the military or live overseas — would still get a chance to turn in a photo identification or an ID exception form for their choice in the race to remain in the count, the court’s prevailing order says.
The Supreme Court’s order isn’t expected to fully resolve the close race between Griffin and Riggs, who leads Griffin by 734 votes from more than 5.5 million ballots cast in their race. It’s the only 2024 election in the country that is still undecided.”