By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The narrowly trailing Republican candidate in the race for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat formally requested a recount on Tuesday, with barely 600 votes separating him from the Democratic incumbent.
Jefferson Griffin, a Court of Appeals judge, sent the request before a noon deadline, marking the lone statewide race where a recount is poised to occur. Recounts for several single- or multi-county races also have been requested, including five General Assembly races. Ballots will be run again through tabulator machines.
Associate Justice Allison Riggs led Tuesday by 625 votes over Griffin, as election officials in all but two small counties from the state’s 100 counties have finalized their work from last Friday’s count meetings.
Griffin led after election night by roughly 10,000 votes, but the margin dwindled last week as county election boards reviewed tens of thousands of provisional and absentee ballots and added voting choices of those that qualified for counting to the totals. More than 5.5 million ballots have been cast in the Riggs-Griffin race.
The State Board of Elections said in a news release that most of the 100 counties will begin their recounts on Wednesday and should be completed by Nov. 27. The board is slated to meet Nov. 26 to consider final counts and certify results, but a Supreme Court race certification could be considered at a later date, spokesperson Pat Gannon said.
Griffin on Tuesday also filed election protests challenging the validity of more than 60,000 ballots statewide, according to a state Republican Party news release. The protests focus on what the release calls “specific irregularities and discrepancies in the handling and counting of ballots.” It did not provide more details.
“These protests are about one fundamental principle: ensuring every legal vote is counted,” Griffin said in the release.
If the current leaders in the General Assembly races where recounts have been requested keep their advantages, Republicans will lose in January the veto-proof majority that they have held for the past two years at the General Assembly.
Republicans have won 71 of the 120 House seats — one seat shy of the veto-proof majority in that chamber.
The GOP would keep that supermajority if it could win a state House race where Republican Rep. Frank Sossamon trails Democrat Bryan Cohn by 233 votes from over 43,000 ballots cast in the race covering Granville County and part of Vance County.
Republicans have won the 30 seats necessary to retain a chamber supermajority in the 50-seat Senate. But Democratic Gov.-elect Josh Stein would be better able to block permanently GOP bills he opposed with his veto stamp if Republicans are unable to retain a three-fifths majority in the House.
Candidates in legislative races who are trailing the top vote-getter by 1 percentage point or less can seek a recount.