The North Carolina Supreme Court has dismissed a request by a Republican judge for a seat on its bench, declining to decide at this time whether over 60,000 ballots should be excluded from the final tally in his bid to unseat the leading Democratic candidate,

A contentious legal battle over whether to seat one of its own members threatens not only the future of the court's ideological balance, but its role in the public sphere

A political war has erupted over a state Supreme Court race in North Carolina more than two months after Democrats appeared to narrowly clinch the seat. Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent,