The North Carolina Board of Elections said in a court filing Tuesday that only 1,675 voters will be impacted by Republican Jefferson Griffin’s challenge against Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
The board said it will require 1,409 overseas voters in Guilford County to provide photo ID within 30 days for their ballot to count. Griffin had challenged Guilford voters, as well as overseas voters in three other Democratic-leaning counties.
But the Democratic-controlled state elections board said it will only require Guilford voters to provide ID, since Griffin’s challenge of that county’s overseas voters was his only protest completed in time, as required by state law.
If overseas voters in all four counties had been required to provide photo ID, that could have impacted roughly 5,500 voters.
The board also said it will reject the ballots of 266 “never residents." Those are voters who have never lived in the state. In theory, these would be people who were born overseas, have lived overseas, and whose parents have North Carolina residency. Their removal was required by the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court.
With less than 1,700 votes in doubt, it could be difficult for Griffin to overcome Riggs' 734-vote lead. That lead has held up after two statewide recounts.
The elections board provided the details in a court filing. It was responding to the state Supreme Court's order earlier this week on how to proceed in the case.
The state's highest court had rejected Griffin's effort to discard more than 60,000 ballots whose voters allegedly had incomplete registrations.
But in a 4-2 ruling, it allowed Griffin's challenge of "never residents" and some overseas voters to proceed. It wasn't clear how many counties would be impacted by the challenge of overseas voters.
Democratic Justice Anita Earls, who dissented in the case, said she was unsure of how many overseas voters might be impacted. She questioned why the court was making some overseas voters provide photo ID and not others.
