UPDATE: North Carolina must restore wrongly invalidated ballots, election board rules

On Monday, Popular Information reported that at least 29 people had their ballots in the 2024 general election wrongly discarded by the North Carolina Supreme Court. The state's highest court ruled that about 260 ballots must be tossed because they were cast by people who were "never residents" of the state. But Popular Information, in collaboration with Anderson Alerts, uncovered evidence that at least 29 people have lived in North Carolina.

The ballots — and thousands of others — were challenged by Jefferson Griffin, a Republican candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court who lost by 734 votes to Democrat Allison Riggs.

On Tuesday evening, the North Carolina Board of Elections filed a notice in federal court, citing Popular Information's reporting, stating that the votes of people who were wrongly identified would be restored. The election board said it would undertake steps to "ensure each of the voters challenged are accurately identified" as a result of reports from Popular Information and others:

Specifically, the election board will duplicate the methodology employed by Popular Information to determine if any of the impacted voters had previously voted in person. The election board notes that previously voting in person would "show that the challenged voter attested, under penalty of perjury, to having resided within the county during a prior election." Further, all impacted voters will be mailed a notice that their vote had been contested and "provided thirty days from the date of the mailing to submit a sworn affidavit stating that they have resided in the county and identifying their prior residence address."

The procedures outlined by the election board, which could still be challenged, make it far less likely that Griffin will be able to reverse the result. His chances hinge on invalidating as many ballots as possible.

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