Three counts found an incumbent Democrat won a State Supreme Court race. But the Republican candidate is trying to nullify more than 60,000 votes.

An appeals court agreed Tuesday that a federal trial judge acted properly last month in declining to rule on the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters last fall in an unresolved North Carolina Supreme Court election and returning the matter to state court.

The Federal Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the fight over North Carolina’s Supreme Court race will remain in state court.

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,