VOTE NOTES: N.C. Supreme Court halts decision requiring verification of 65,000 votes in tight judicial race - NBC News

From the NBC News Report: The North Carolina Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked a lower court’s ruling that would have required that more than 65,000 votes cast in the disputed 2024 state Supreme Court race be recounted and verified.

The state Supreme Court’s two-sentence order prevents a ruling issued Friday from going into effect so it can review an appeal from the Democratic candidate in the contest.

The ruling Monday is the latest development in a long and winding saga following a close finish in November.

Democratic state Supreme Court judge Allison Riggs, who was appointed to the bench in 2023, emerged after Election Day narrowly ahead of Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin, a state appeals court judge, triggering a series of recounts.

A full machine recount as well as a partial hand recount of the race both showed Riggs leading Griffin by 734 votes. More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in the race. NBC News' Decision Desk has not yet called the race.

After the recounts, Griffin’s team filed legal challenges across the state, alleging that more than 65,000 people had voted illegally. Many of the allegations focused on voters who Griffin’s lawyers claimed didn’t have driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers on file in their voter registration records. Their claims were also related to overseas voters who haven’t lived in North Carolina and overseas voters who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots.

Contributors to this week's edition of Vote Notes:

From Jim Womack, NCEIT 

“In North Carolina, all early in-person voted ballots and all mail-in ballots are uniquely marked to make them retrievable should the voter not be eligible to vote on election day.  Ballots cast in person on election day are not similarly marked and, therefore, cannot be retrieved once cast and scanned. In the appeal of the North Carolina Supreme Court race, the appellant had no remedy to offer that would retrieve or discount the ballots of the many thousands of voters who lacked the required DL# or SSN-4 and who voted on election day.  His appeal, then, was based on the ballots cast by mail or early voting- all of which could potentially be retrieved should they fail to respond and "cure" their deficient voter registrations as ordered by the Appeals Court. Note: The opposing side has already appealed in federal court, and the 4th Circuit is awaiting the outcomes of the challenges in the North Carolina appellate system prior to weighing in. This case still has a ways to go...”

From Gary Meyers, CEO of Meyers Report

“It is a right to be able to vote. However, it is the responsibility of every voter to do so in a proper and timely fashion. It is not a right to be forgiven if you are late or vote improperly. Voting is supposed to be done by competent people. For overseas military people, why not have their photo I.D. presented to a commanding officer at their military installation, who then could sign off as a witness to the I.D. Anyone else overseas would need some form of local notary or representative of our foreign service. If this is not possible, the voter has the responsibility to plan ahead."