A heated battle over a close Supreme Court election in North Carolina escalated last week when the trailing Republican candidate asked a court to throw out 60,000 ballots cast in the November election, a move that Democrats and other critics have charged is a product of the modern GOP's increasing hostility to democracy.
The Republican, Appellate Court Judge Jefferson Griffin, had challenged sitting Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs in the race to sit on North Carolina's highest court. He sued the state board of elections on Dec. 18 after it denied his electoral challenge last week. Griffin then asked the Republican-majority Supreme Court to stop the board from counting more than 60,000 votes, including provisional ballots and those cast overseas, and requested an immediate pause on the certification of the election results. The state board of elections removed the case to federal court the next day.
