This Race Was Decided by 734 Votes. The G.O.P. Wants to Disqualify 60,000 Ballots.

One of the closest state elections in North Carolina history now hinges on the latest power struggle between state Republicans and Democrats — and a voter form dating back 20 years.

From voter ID laws to district map-drawing to judges redeciding cases, North Carolina has long been a laboratory of sorts in ways to amass political power. In recent years, Republicans in particular have changed both state laws and election rules to hamstring Democrats’ influence.

Now, one of the closest statewide elections in North Carolina history is offering a vivid example of the maneuvering in play to gain an upper hand.

A lengthy recount of more than 5.5 million ballots from the November election that ended last week showed that an incumbent Democrat on North Carolina’s state Supreme Court, Allison Riggs, held a 734-vote edge over Jefferson G. Griffin, a Republican judge on the state Court of Appeals.

Judge Griffin has not given up. He is protesting the results of the entire election to the State Board of Elections, arguing that many voters were ineligible to cast ballots. That has been tried before — unsuccessfully, by a Democratic chief justice of the state Supreme Court who lost an even closer race in 2020.

But the scope of Judge Griffin’s protest is far more ambitious: He is calling for some 60,000 voters to be disqualified.

The issue largely comes down to requirements in voter registration applications approved by Democratic legislators in a 2004 law. The form was supposed to require applicants to list their driver’s license or Social Security numbers, but it did not — and over the years, thousands of voters, unaware of the requirement, did not provide them.