The race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court remains uncalled since November's election, as Republican challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin has filed lawsuits to block the purported victory of incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court preliminarily sided with Griffin and imposed a temporary stay to block the state's certification of Riggs' win, at least until Griffin's complaints about alleged ineligible voters are heard, NBC News reported.

Unsurprisingly, state Democrats are furious and are demanding an immediate resolution to Griffin's challenge so that Riggs can be officially declared the victor.

Court grants requested stay

In an amended order issued on Tuesday, Justice Trey Allen noted the litigation's course through state and federal courts, and wrote, "This matter should be addressed expeditiously because it concerns certification of an election."

As such, the court agreed to impose a temporary stay to block the North Carolina Board of Elections from certifying the results of the race and set an "expedited briefing schedule," with all initial and response briefs due by January 24.

Notably, given her involvement in the matter, Justice Riggs recused herself from the case, and two of the justices -- Democrat Anita Earls and Republican Richard Dietz -- issued dissenting opinions on the decision, making it a 4-2 order in favor of Griffin.

Dissenting opinions

In her dissent, Justice Earls asserted that Griffin had failed to prove the likelihood of success on the merits of his claims that the ballots of tens of thousands of allegedly improperly registered and ineligible overseas voters should be tossed out and not counted.

"For this Court to intervene in an unprecedented way to stop that process, where there is no underlying merit to the contention that some 60,000 citizens who registered to vote and voted should have their votes thrown out, there must be a strong showing of the likelihood of success on the merits," she wrote. "There is no such showing here. Therefore, I dissent."

Justice Dietz, on the other hand, admitted his belief that "some of these legal challenges likely have merit" but nonetheless objected to the timing of the litigation challenging election rules so close to the election.

"Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules -- and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules -- invites incredible mischief," he wrote. "It will lead to doubts about the finality of vote counts following an election, encourage novel legal challenges that greatly delay certification of the results, and fuel an already troubling decline in public faith in our elections."

In response to those dissents, however, Justice Allen authored a brief concurrence in which he sought to "stress that the Court’s order granting Judge Griffin’s motion for temporary stay should not be taken to mean that Judge Griffin will ultimately prevail on the merits. It seems necessary to make this point because the opinions filed by my dissenting colleagues could give the opposite impression to readers unfamiliar with the intricacies of appellate procedure."

State Democrats cry foul

Justice Allen's nuance was lost on Democrats, though, as evidenced by a statement from North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton, who said, "Justice Allison Riggs won her seat fair and square and that will continue to be demonstrated before the courts."

"We are in this position due to Jefferson Griffin refusing to accept the will of the people," Clayton added. "He is hellbent on finding new ways to overthrow this election but we are confident that the evidence will show, like they did throughout multiple recounts, that she is the winner in this race."

Likewise, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said, "Allison Riggs won and the recount confirmed it. Republicans want to toss thousands of legal votes in the trash because they don’t like the outcome. This shouldn't be about party politics -- this should be about making sure every vote counts & that our elections still mean something."