WUNC:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Tuesday to certify the 2024 elections, except for a handful of contests under recount and protest. That includes the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court in which the Republican candidate has challenged the validity of more than 60,000 ballots, including two cast by his opponent’s parents.

Republican Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals trails Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, in the race for Seat 6 on the state Supreme Court. But the margin between them— 625 votes — is close enough under state law to require the recount demanded by Griffin.

Griffin’s campaign has also filed protests across the state, claiming tens of thousands of ballots should be disqualified for a host of reasons. The claims include ballots allegedly cast early by people who subsequently died before Election Day, ballots cast by people who haven’t completed the terms of a felony conviction, and ballots cast by overseas citizens who have not resided in North Carolina but whose parents or legal guardians were eligible North Carolina voters before leaving the United States.

However, the vast majority of ballot protests are aimed at what the Griffin campaign claims are cases of incomplete voter registrations. According to those protests, these ballots should be disqualified because the registration data do not include the voter’s driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The basis for this protest is the same as one in a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee claiming 225,000 voters should be removed from the state’s rolls due to incomplete registration. A Donald Trump-appointed federal district court judge dismissed a main part of that lawsuit in October….