Voters who provide the required verification information within 15 days will count their votes.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals said on April 4 that it challenged the vote in a close competition between two candidates on the state Supreme Court.
Prove voters whose votes are challenged on the 15th business day, with necessary verification information, such as a driver’s license or Social Security number, to prove their eligibility.
Griffin has cornered incumbent Democrat Justice Allison Riggs by under 1,000 votes, and Riggs and Democrats declared victory a few months ago after the number of votes that led her.
He challenges the validity of more than 65,000 voters, claiming that voters did not provide the necessary identification information to prove eligibility for the vote upon registration.
His lawsuit has suspended the state Election Commission from certifying Riggs as the winner five months after Election Day.
The recount confirmed the Democratic lead, but Griffin claims it will override the contested votes and an additional 5,500 votes from military and international voters who allegedly failed to present a photo ID when voting.
According to the ruling, voters who provide the necessary verification information within 15 days will count the votes, but votes will count the votes.
The court said the state election commission was wrong when it dismissed Griffin’s objection in December.
Riggs said she would appeal the decision and suggested it go to the state Supreme Court.
Griffin is currently sitting in the state court of appeals and rejects cases related to his case, which competed for the votes affected in three categories.
The April 4 opinion ruled that the state election commission should have determined that the votes contested should be left countless because it did not comply with state law or the state constitution.
The court’s decision also overturns a ruling from a judge who upheld the board’s actions in February.
“Free elections below…the North Carolina constitution includes the right to accurately count the vote,” said the opinion supported by Republicans Judge John Tyson and Fred Gore.
“Griffin has the legal right to investigate this outcome through legally enacted post-election procedures.”
Voting for Griffin’s most important category was cast by voters who have no driver’s license number or the last four digits of Social Security number on their registration documents. This has been a requirement since 2004.
Griffin’s lawyers alleged that the state election commission failed to properly enforce the requirements over the years.
The second category was probably thousands of military and international voters, and had a requirement from another state because they were unable to provide a copy of the photo identification or ID exception form on the ballot.
Anyone within the first two categories will earn 15 business days to provide missing information or photo ID.
The third category affects hundreds of foreign voters who have never lived in the US.
Their vote cannot be counted due to violations of the state’s residence laws, according to the Court of Appeal.
Democrat Toby Hampson, a Democrat who is a judge on the Third Court of Appeal, wrote a dissent stating that Griffin could not identify one voter who was not eligible to vote in last year’s election under state laws regulating elections.
Rigg’s lawyers and the state commission said voting is legal and argued that state election laws that apply to long-standing elections cannot be retroactively changed.
Griffin’s “to recognize indiscriminate efforts to appeal to the votes of tens of thousands of eligible voters without showing indiscriminate votes, showing that he was disqualified from the vote under existing law is to raise speculation and speculation over evidence and reasons,” Hampson writes.
Griffin’s lawyer said he would win if the challenged illegal vote was ruled out.
Rigg’s side argues that the votes challenged in the identification ruling came from areas that are primarily leaning towards Democrats.
It is not clear how many voters will take part in examining the contested vote.
“We support the process of allowing the state commission a second chance to do the job and ensuring only eligible voters vote in the election,” Griffin’s Campaign Committee said in a statement praising the ruling.
In a statement, Riggs was called “a deeply misinformed decision that could disenfranchise over 65,000 legal voters and set dangerous precedents, allowing disappointed politicians to hamper people’s will.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
