‘Unacceptable’: Judge blasts court decision that thrust her election victory into limbo

A Democratic justice in North Carolina is calling attention to a state Supreme Court ruling that threatened to upend her November election victory over her Republican challenger – which she carried by just 736 votes.

The North Carolina Supreme Court, in a Friday ruling, tossed out nearly 300 ballots and instructed about 5,000 military and overseas voters that their votes would be counted only if they submitted copies of their photo IDs, The Washington Post reported.

It’s enough votes to throw Democratic Justice Allison Riggs’s win into jeopardy and possibly hand the seat to Judge Jefferson Griffin, her Republican opponent, who went on to file a series of legal challenges since losing the election, the outlet said.

Riggs on Friday vowed to continue her fight over the ballots in question.

“I’m the proud daughter of a 30-year military veteran who was deployed overseas, and it is unacceptable that the Court is choosing to selectively disenfranchise North Carolinians serving our country, here and overseas,” Riggs said in a statement obtained by the Post.

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"North Carolina requires photo ID for voting, but election officials did not tell military and overseas voters to provide them because of a federal law aimed at making voting easier for them," the Post added.

The Republican-controlled court also allowed more than 60,000 other ballots to be counted, a partial victory to Riggs, who a Democratic governor appointed to the state Supreme Court seat in 2023, the Post noted.

“The largest swath of voters Griffin challenged — more than 60,000 voters — were those who did not have the last four digits of their Social Security numbers or other identifiers on file with election officials when they voted in November,” according to the report.

The Friday decision overruled the state appeals court's ruling related to those voters “because election officials had not notified them of any issues with their registrations. It noted the voters had provided IDs when they cast their ballots,” the Post added.