Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs has overtaken Republican Jefferson Griffin by just 24 votes in the race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. That’s out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast.
Griffin led Riggs by about 10,100 votes on Nov. 5, election night.
But over the last 10 days, county election boards have been processing and counting absentee mail ballots that arrived on Nov. 4 and 5. They have also been reviewing and counting some provisional ballots, which are cast when people have problems at their polling places.
Those ballots slowly whittled away Griffin’s lead. Wake County on Friday finished counting its ballots, allowing Riggs to overcome Griffin — even if it’s by a minuscule margin.
The race isn’t over, however.
While Friday was the deadline for county boards to certify their results, a handful of counties told the N.C. Board of Elections they still need more time to process ballots. Nine counties haven’t reported “final canvass results,” according to the state’s elections dashboard.
The state announced late Friday that six counties will resume canvassing Monday: Chatham, Craven, Cumberland, Forsyth, Randolph and Yancey.
It’s unclear how many ballots they have left to review.
Once all of the ballots have been counted, the candidate who is trailing can request a recount. The two campaigns can also challenge provisional ballots that were counted and those that weren’t.
That’s what happened four years ago when Republican Paul Newby defeated Democratic incumbent Cheri Beasley by 401 votes.
Republicans currently have a 5-2 majority on the state’s highest court. A Griffin victory would expand that margin to 6-1.
Riggs was appointed to the court last year by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
