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By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - A North Carolina appeals court on Friday sided with a Republican candidate for a seat on the state's top court who is contesting the results of last November's election by finding that thousands of the ballots cast should not be counted unless voters can swiftly fix issues with their voter registration.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican member of that court who after the election and recounts has been trailing North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, by 734 votes.
Griffin's campaign in a statement called the ruling a "win for the citizens of North Carolina." But Democrats blasted it, saying that if upheld on appeal by the Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court it would upend the results of a race months after voters cast their ballots.
"We will be promptly appealing this deeply misinformed decision that threatens to disenfranchise more than 65,000 lawful voters and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing disappointed politicians to thwart the will of the people," Riggs said in a statement.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections in a statement noted the expected appeal in saying the ruling was not yet in effect. But it said regardless of the case's outcome, concerned voters should submit updated voter registration forms.
In the immediate hours after polls closed on Nov. 5, Griffin was leading Riggs by nearly 10,000 votes. But that lead dwindled away as more ballots were counted, and subsequent recounts confirmed Riggs had secured 734 more votes than Griffin, with over 5.5 million ballots cast in the closely watched race.
Griffin has argued that over 60,000 ballots should be excluded as they were cast by voters who were not properly registered because they did not provide their state driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers as a 2004 state law required.
Judges John Tyson and Fred Gore, two fellow Republican judges on the same appeals court Griffin serves on, in Friday's ruling said that state law remained in effect yet the state's elections board failed to ensure that voters who did not provide that information fixed those issues.
The appeals court's majority said that while it had the authority to throw out those ballots now, it would instead require the board to notify voters and give them 15 days to address any deficiencies.
Judge Toby Hampson, a Democrat, dissented, saying none of the voters going into the election had been given any reason to believe their vote would not be counted or included in the final tallies.
"Changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes in an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution," Hampson wrote.
The decision reverses a lower court judge who upheld the board's decisions.
Riggs has been vying for a full eight-year term following her 2023 appointment to the court by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper to fill a vacancy on the seven-member tribunal, whose justices are elected.
The court has a 5-2 Republican majority. Riggs can continue to serve in her current position until the election dispute is resolved.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Alistair Bell and Diane Craft)
