North Carolina’s election officials will not order a second recount in an extremely close race for the state Supreme Court after a partial manual recount failed to indicate that the Republican candidate trailing the incumbent could win.

After a machine count of more than 5.5 million votes was completed last week, Associate Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, maintained a lead of 734 votes over Jefferson Griffin, a Republican, who is a current state Court of Appeals Judge. Griffin requested a partial manual recount, in which ballots randomly selected from 3% voting locations in each of the 100 counties were reexamined.

A statewide manual recount was required by law if there were enough differences in the sample results to reverse the outcome if they were extrapolated across all ballots. The sample tabulations that ended on Tuesday showed Riggs to have won more votes than Griffin. The State Board of Elections has decided that a full recount will not be conducted.

However, the election is not yet over. Wednesday, the five-member board of state was to hear arguments on protests Griffin and three GOP candidates in close races had filed.

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Riggs’ campaign, which is led by Riggs who is one of the two Democrats on this seven-member court and has been calling for Griffin to concede, declared victory on Tuesday. Griffin did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

Three categories of voting are covered by the protests that have been brought before the state board. The protests include those who cast votes with voter registration records without a driver’s licence or a partial Social Security number; overseas voters whose parents are considered state residents but who never lived in North Carolina; and military or foreign voters who failed to provide photo identification along with their ballots.

Separately, a Court of Appeals Panel unanimously rejected Griffin’s request that the State Board rule on the protests prior to Wednesday’s meeting in order to speed up the process.

The board can dismiss protests, or — if there are problems — order corrected vote tallies, additional recounts or new election. The board’s decisions — which have a 3-2 Democratic majority — can be appealed in state courts. County boards are the first to consider other protests submitted by Griffin and legislative candidates.

Last week, the state Democratic Party filed an action in federal court to prevent the State Board of Elections to rule on the ballots that were contested. The Democrats’ attorneys claim that federal law prohibits such systematic challenges on voter eligibility in an election which has already taken place. Some protests are centered on actions that Republicans sueded over before the November elections.

Democratic officials and allies held an early morning news conference outside the State Supreme Court Building on Tuesday. They strongly criticized Griffin, and other Republicans who they said were attempting to disenfranchise legitimate voters. North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton expressed her concern that the state Supreme Court may ultimately rule in favor of Republicans and remove challenged ballots.

Clayton explained: “We’re trying to ensure that people raise their voices and that we file lawsuits wherever we can.” “We also trust our board of election officials to do their jobs and count every vote.”

Griffin had a lead of about 10,000 votes over Riggs on election night. However, this lead shrank and Riggs gained the upper hand as provisional and absentee voting totals were added. County boards are considering other types of protests that Griffin and legislators have filed.

The Associated Press did not call the Supreme Court race or two of the three races in the legislature that were highlighted by the protests. In one of these two races, Republican state Rep. Frank Sossamon is trailing Democratic challenger Bryan Cohn. Cohn’s victory would result in Republicans losing one seat from their current veto proof majority beginning next month.