Judges temporarily prevent North Carolina officials from contacting voters in close election

Source: Yahoo! News/AP

Wed, April 23, 2025 at 12:17 PM EDT


RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked North Carolina election officials from contacting voters whose disputed ballots in an unresolved 2024 state Supreme Court race could be eliminated from the final count.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, granted the stay request of Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs, who has asked federal judges to throw out the recent rulings of state appellate courts that largely favored Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin's requests to toss ballots that he challenged.

Democrats and voting rights groups have raised alarm about Griffin's effort, calling it an attack on democracy that would serve as a road map for the GOP to reverse future election results in other states. The state Republican Party says Griffin's efforts are about ensuring that only legal votes are counted.

The court's decision late Tuesday means government election workers are prohibited — at least for now — from carrying out a process mandated by state judges who ruled earlier this month that voters within two categories were ineligible. Most of these military or overseas voters, once contacted formally, would get 30 days to provide additional identifying information so that their race choices would remain in the tally. Others, however, would be unable to “cure” their ineligibility and their ballots would be removed.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/judges-temporarily-prevent-north-carolina-161700067.html