Washington (CNN) The Senate voted Wednesday by an extremely narrow margin to advance controversial judicial nominee Thomas Farr to be a district court judge in North Carolina, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie -- but his nomination could still be in jeopardy.

All 49 Senate Democrats voted against Farr's nomination, saying he supported measures that they say disenfranchise African-American voters. Democrats cite his role providing legal counsel to the North Carolina Republican Party on the state's congressional map, which was struck down this year as a partisan gerrymander.

Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and the Senate's sole black GOP member, voted to advance Farr, and told reporters Wednesday he hasn't made his final decision on the nomination.

When asked why he voted to advance the vote, he told CNN, "This was based the information I've been provided."

He later told reporters he wanted to speak to the author of a 1991 memo obtained by the Washington Post , which outlines a controversial postcard campaign distributed by the 1990 campaign of Sen. Jesse Helms, that the Justice Department said were used to intimidate black voters from going to the polls.

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