It's been nearly two months since Election Day, but control of a seat on the North Carolina State Supreme Court is being held up in, well, the courts.

As Stephanie Sy explains, the trailing candidate is asking for more than 60,000 votes to be invalidated.

After more than five and a half million ballots were cast in the Tar Hill State, this contest came down to 734 votes,

separating incumbent Democrat Alison Riggs from her Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin.

Griffin says there were voting irregularities that could have changed the outcome.

Here to explain the dispute and the stakes is Rusty Jacobs,

voting and election integrity reporter for public radio station WUNC. Rusty, it's a pleasure to have

you on the news hour. Judge Griffin, the Republican Challenger, is asking for 60,000 votes.

He's asking the court system to throw these votes out.

Now, that's just about 1% of the votes, but in a contest that I understand came down to

two one-hundredths of a percent. That matters. What irregularities is he alleging?

He's alleging most, in most cases, that 60,000 of these ballots or so were cast by voters who were not completely registered or registered appropriately.

Essentially, it comes down to this issue over registration forms that predated what was the

the help america vote act the hava act early 2000s it passed once that law passed registration

required a voter to either provide the last four digits of their social security number

or a driver's license number.

Some voters in North Carolina registered with forms that predated passage of that act.

This issue has been brought up before and has been dismissed by a federal district court judge

and in the lead up to the most recent election.

The state board of elections also reviewed allegations that these people were improperly

registered and therefore ineligible to vote, and they dismissed that claim.

And they looked into it.

...