(The Center Square) – Two of three judges on a North Carolina appellate decision say Republican Jefferson Griffin’s appeal has merit and ordered the State Board of Elections to recalculate the nation’s only unresolved election from Nov. 5.

On the 151st day since Election Day, the North Carolina Supreme Court Seat 6 race – an eight-year term seat – has yet to be decided. Friday’s announced decision, from oral arguments two weeks ago, gives 15 business days after notice for missing data in registration records of voters to be filled in, and overseas voters not providing photo identification as required by law to do so.

The voters who never lived in North Carolina are to be dropped from the totals.

Those instructions – Justices John Tyson and Fred Gore supported the ruling, Tobias Hampson dissented – could be appealed. And, it doesn’t give a clear indication if Griffin or Judge Allison Riggs will be the winner.

Riggs, the Democrat and incumbent on the bench after appointment by then-Gov. Roy Cooper, has been poised for a 734-vote triumph as the litigation saga plays out in multiple lawsuits and in both state and federal courtrooms. Griffin, a state appellate judge, has appealed every decision against him.

On Election Night, with 2,658 precincts reporting, Griffin led Riggs by 9,851 votes of 5,540,090 cast. Provisional and absentee ballots that qualified were added to the totals since, swinging the race by 10,585 votes.

The majority opinion read in part, regarding equal terms and fundamental rights in free elections, “This right is violated when ‘votes are not accurately counted (because) (unlawful) () ballots are included in the election results’ The inclusion of even one unlawful ballot in a vote total dilutes the lawful votes and ‘effectively ‘disenfranchises’’ lawful voters.”

The majority opinion is covered in the first 36 pages of the ruling; Hampson’s dissent is in the final 30 pages.

Anderson Clayton, chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, has called the win “decisive.” Jason Simmons, chairman of the North Carolina GOP, said earlier votes in question are “blatant violations of state law.”

In response to Friday’s announcement, Clayton said the court put party affiliation above the rights of North Carolina voters.” Simmons said, “Today’s decision confirms the facts were on Judge Griffin’s side. This a victory for the rule of law and election integrity.”

The state elections board, majority 3-2 Democrats, and Riggs have been aligned in the litigations.

The Supreme Court bench has historically been nonpartisan and partisan, and since going back to the latter, was 6-1 Democrats in 2019. It is 5-2 Republicans today.

The state Supreme Court calendar has already begun, with Riggs still in place until the election is decided. She has been recused from any proceedings involving the election. Similarly, Griffin has not been involved in any at the appellate level.

Griffin protested about 65,000 ballots on multiple counts, and the state board rejected all of them. Most were by 3-2 party-line votes.

The protests the state board denied included registration records of voters, such as lack of providing either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. State law for that has been in place two decades, dating to 2004.

Other ballots protested and denied by the state board included voters overseas who have never lived in the United States, and for lack of photo identification provided with military and overseas voters.

(The Center Square) – Hurricane Helene’s death toll in North Carolina has grown to 107 and is 236 across seven states.

Gov. Josh Stein shared news of a death in the Avery County community of Newland. The wife of a couple camping was among those who died in earlier confirmations; the husband’s death was added on Thursday after his body was found.

The governor said the couple was camping on the last weekend of September when the storm hit.

This weekend marks the beginning of the 28th week of recovery. Damage is estimated at $60 billion.

Helene is arguably the worst natural disaster in state history. Hurricanes Floyd in 1999 and Hazel in 1954 have their place, as does Asheville’s Great Flood of 1916. Comparison is not apples to apples.

Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Dekle Beach, Fla., on Sept. 26. It was expected to come north to the Appalachian Mountains; however, the rainfall total from its dissipation there exceeded all forecasts.

Some places got more than 30 inches, most were at 24 or more. Due to terrain, water often rushed before it pooled and flooded – very unlike the flooding that happens in the coastal plains.

AccuWeather said rainfall totals were 32.51 inches in Jeter Mountain, 31.36 inches in Busick, and 26.65 inches in Hughes.

Forty-two died in Buncombe County, 11 in Yancey and 10 in Henderson.

Respective state officials say 49 were killed in South Carolina, 34 in Georgia, 25 in Florida, 18 in Tennessee, two in Virginia and one in Indiana.

Numbers were confirmed by The Center Square based on information supplied by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services; South Carolina Department of Public Safety; Georgia Emergency Management Agency; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Tennessee Emergency Management Agency; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; and the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.

Helene is the fourth most deadly hurricane from the Atlantic Basin in the last three-quarters of a century. Only Katrina (2005, deaths 1,392), Audrey (1957, deaths 416) and Camille (1969, deaths 256) killed more people.

(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.

John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.

“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.

“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”

Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”

Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.

In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”

Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.

Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.

Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.

“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”

In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.

The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.

Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.

Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”

Results were gathered between Dec. 27 and Feb. 1.