The State Board of Elections will not order a full hand recount of all ballots in the N.C. Supreme Court Associate Justice contest, after a partial recount resulted in additional votes for the leading candidate, Democrat Allison Riggs.

Riggs, who leads the contest by 734 votes after a statewide machine recount, picked up more votes than her opponent — Republican Jefferson G. Griffin — in the partial hand count. Riggs garnered 70 additional votes compared to 56 for Griffin in the hand count, which concluded today. The recounts were conducted by bipartisan teams in all 100 counties over the past week.

Under state law, for a full hand recount to be ordered, Griffin would have had to pick up at least 35 more votes than Riggs in the partial hand count of the ballots in 3 percent of the Election Day precincts and early voting sites in each county.

Election administrators expect candidates to pick up votes in a hand recount because some voters do not properly mark their ballot, and as a result, the tabulator cannot read their selections. However, in hand-to-eye recount, humans can identify marks that show which candidate the voter intended to select, as determined by bipartisan county board members, and count those ballots.

The partial hand-to-eye recount followed a full machine recount of the more than 5.5 million ballots cast in the Supreme Court contest. That recount showed Riggs with a 734-vote lead.

“We once again owe our gratitude to the county boards of elections, and all of the workers who have made sure that ballots were counted accurately in this contest,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “Recounts, especially hand recounts, are tedious, difficult work.”

State board to hear protests Wednesday

Meanwhile, the State Board will meet at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to consider election protests filed by the Griffin campaign.

The meeting will be held in the board room of the third floor of the Dobbs Building, 430 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh. Any member of the public may attend, space permitting, and the meeting will be streamed online and by phone at the following locations.

• Online: Webex (Password: NCSBE)
• By Phone: Dial (415) 655-0003, enter access code 2436 916 8362#, passcode 62723#

Meeting materials will be posted as they are available to the state board’s meeting folder.