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The North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the election certification for the seat of one of its justices, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Republican candidate for the high court.

The state Supreme Court with a 5-2 Republican majority ruled on Tuesday to block the election certification in the race between Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs and her GOP challenger, North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, The Associated Press reported. Riggs recused herself from the decision and the other Democratic justice opposed the block.

“In the absence of a stay from federal court, this matter should be addressed expeditiously because it concerns certification of an election,” the state Supreme Court’s order read.

More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in the state Supreme Court race, and a full machine recount and a partial hand recount of the election showed Griffin trailing behind Riggs by 734 votes.

However, Griffin and state Republicans argue that 60,000 ballots should be rejected because ineligible voters fraudulently cast them. The allegations included voters who allegedly didn’t have a Social Security number or a driver’s license number in their voter registration records and overseas voters who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots and haven’t lived in North Carolina.

Griffin lost a challenge before the North Carolina State Board of Elections last month to reject those ballots. As a result, the board was to issue a certificate confirming the election results on Jan. 10 unless a court intervened.

The state’s high court on Tuesday ordered Griffin and the state board to file legal briefs over the next two weeks.

While Griffin’s attorneys asked the state Supreme Court three weeks ago to step in, the state elections board had the case moved to federal court. However, U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, a Trump appointee, disagreed with the board’s request and sent the case back to the state’s high court.

Lawyers for Riggs and the state board have appealed Myers’ decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for the case to be returned to federal court.