(The Center Square) – One month after Election Day, drama and indecision continues as the sole Supreme Court race in North Carolina has yet to be called.
The only statewide race not yet certified, less than 750 votes separate the two candidates. Many challenges have been filed, as counties throughout the state gear up for a second recount.
Tuesday morning, the North Carolina State Board of Elections randomly generated the list of precincts and early voting sites that must be recounted by hand throughout the 100 counties.
Republican Jefferson Griffin, leading on Election Night and now trailing Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, requested a partial hand-to-eye recount. This will be the second recount in the race.
According to a release from the board, the sample hand-to-eye recount is “designed to determine whether there are sufficient discrepancies from the machine recount to require a full hand-to-eye recount of all ballots cast in the contest.”
On Election Night, with more than 5.5 million votes cast and all 2,658 precincts in, Griffin led by 9,851 votes. Tuesday he trailed by 734 votes – a 10,573 vote reversal through the counting of provisional and absentee ballots.
County boards of elections must begin their recounts no later than Thursday while many are expected to begin on Wednesday.
“The county boards of elections have worked and continue to work tirelessly throughout this election and the post-election period, including the recount process,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the election board, said in a release. “We cannot thank them enough for continuing to ensure voters’ voices are heard and that the results are accurate in the closest contests.”
Griffin has filed a number of protests also related to the election, including contesting the legitimacy of about 60,000 ballots. He was joined by Republican Senate candidates Stacie McGinn and Ashlee Bryan Adams in those protests.
On Monday, Griffin filed a motion to expedite those protests which are currently waiting before the election board.
“The people of North Carolina deserve to see these protests resolved in a timely manner. Any delays at the N.C. State Board of Elections would undermine voter confidence and transparency,” said NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer in a release. “Our priority remains ensuring that every legal vote is counted and that the public can trust the integrity of this election.”
The motion would expedite the process for a number of the protests, including setting a deadline of Wednesday for a response to be filed in Griffin’s request that election board member Siobhan Millen be disqualified from voting in the protests.
Millen’s husband, Pressly Millen, is a partner in the law firm representing Riggs in the election. Siobhan Millen is one of three Democrats on the state board chaired by Democrat Alan Hirsch.
Griffin’s motion would also expedite a decision in Millen’s case to Friday. That way, a “final written decision on the protests over which the Board has taken jurisdiction” could be made by Monday.
Riggs has pushed back on all of these challenges, stating she “won” the race.
“My opponent is relying on legal theories that have already been dismissed by our State Board of Elections, as well as state and federal courts, to try and toss votes instead of conceding,” she posted on social media. “This is not normal behavior.”
