A federal appeals court ruled against national and state Republicans in a challenge to 225,000 voter registrations in North Carolina, reversing a lower court's ruling sending the challenge back to state court.

The challenge will now remain in federal court, where it faces steep odds, after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously decided that it was "improper" for a district judge to send Republicans' claim back to state court, where it was first brought.

North Carolina election officials and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which intervened in the case, moved the GOP challenge to federal court and asked the district judge........

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