- A final tally of the machine recount in North Carolina's state Supreme Court race showed both candidates losing 110 votes statewide. Those changes preserved a 734-vote margin for Democrat Allison Riggs over Republican Jefferson Griffin.
- Eight counties had not reported recount results by Thanksgiving. Among the final counties, Randolph County reported Griffin losing 92 votes. The next-largest discrepancies came from Mecklenburg County, where Riggs lost 31 votes and Griffin 29.
- Griffin has requested a hand recount of a sample of precincts and early voting sites statewide. He also continues to challenge thousands of ballots cast during the election.
The final tally in a machine recount of North Carolina’s recent state Supreme Court election showed both candidates losing a total of 110 votes statewide. The recount preserved Democrat Allison Riggs’ 734-vote margin over Republican Jefferson Griffin out of 5.5 million votes cast statewide.
Among the final eight counties providing recount totals this week, Randolph County reported Griffin losing 92 votes. Randolph reported Riggs losing 11 votes.
In Mecklenburg County, Riggs lost 31 votes and Griffin lost 29.
The state Board of Elections posted the final tally at 10:50 a.m. Tuesday. It was the first update since Thanksgiving. With 92 counties reporting last week, Griffin had seen a net gain of 91 votes. He had gained a total of 18 votes statewide, while Riggs had lost 73.
Just 32 of the state’s 100 counties reported the same vote totals for the machine recount as reported during the original count. Riggs gained votes in 25 counties and lost votes in 27. Griffin gained votes in 33 counties and lost votes in 30.
Griffin’s 92-vote drop in Randolph County marked the largest change statewide. His tally dropped from 56,639 to 56,547, a decline of almost 0.2% of his total in that county.
The Mecklenburg County changes for both candidates marked the second- and third-largest discrepancies between the first and second counts.
Riggs gained 14 votes in Montgomery County and saw double-digit declines in Lenoir (21), Forsyth (16), Durham (14), and Randolph (11).
Griffin also gained 14 votes in Montgomery County, along with picking up 12 votes in Cabarrus County. In addition to the losses in Randolph and Mecklenburg counties, he saw double-digit declines in Durham (13), Alamance (11), Halifax (11), and Onslow (10).
Griffin requested a hand recount in a random sample of precincts. The State Board of Elections was scheduled Tuesday to conduct a random drawing of Election Day precincts and early voting sites to participate in the hand recount.
“The sample recount is used to determine whether a full hand-to-eye recount of all ballots cast statewide is required,” according to a state elections board news release. “If the results of the hand-to-eye recount among the randomly selected voting sites differ from the machine recount, such that extrapolating the amount of the change to the entire state (based on the proportion of ballots recounted to the total votes cast for that office) would result in reversing the results, the State Board will order a statewide hand-to-eye recount of all ballots in that contest.”
As recounts have moved forward, Griffin also has filed challenges against 60,000 votes cast in the election. State and local officials continue to address those challenges.
Final election-night totals showed Griffin leading by more than 10,000 votes statewide. As counties counted provisional ballots and other votes not tallied on Nov. 5, Riggs overtook Griffin.
If Riggs wins, the state’s highest court will maintain its current roster of judges and its current 5-2 Republican majority. A Griffin win would shift the majority to a 6-1 Republican advantage. If Griffin loses, he still has four years remaining on his term as a member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Griffin and two Republican state Senate candidates also filed paperwork in November asking the state Supreme Court to accept an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief in the case Kivett v. North Carolina State Board of Elections.
That case challenges state rules dealing with overseas voters.
“Amici curiae have a very direct interest in the outcome of the petition pending before the Court,” the three Republican candidates’ lawyers wrote Tuesday. “Amici are candidates in the 2024 general election. The winners of their contests have not been certified because of irregularities in those elections. Amici have filed election protests for each of their races, which remain pending before the state and county election boards.”
“One of the key bases for the election protests is unlawful voting by people who have never lived in North Carolina,” the court filing continued. “That is also the key legal question before this Court. How this Court resolves that question may directly impact who wins each of these contests, given their slim margins.”