NORTH CAROLINA: Repairing Voter Rolls, over 100,000 Voters with Missing Identification
Republican-led reforms are fixing election integrity and ignoring liberal outcries.
North Carolina’s elections are on a path to greater transparency and integrity, thanks to proactive measures by the Republican-led State Board of Elections (NCSBE). For too long, the state’s voter rolls have been plagued by discrepancies, a mess left unaddressed by the previous Democrat-led NCSBE. Now, under new leadership, the NCSBE has tackled these issues head-on.
Restoration News previously reported that the Trump administration sued the state because of the former Board’s negligence in failing to verify voters’ citizenship, according to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Last December, the Republican-controlled legislature passed an election reform bill over Gov. Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto, allowing State Auditor, Dave Boliek (R) to appoint the Board. Boliek then replaced the former Democrat Members who ran the NCSBE like a partisan fiefdom.
The citizenship verification issue stems from a failure to require driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, or an affirmation that voters lack both during voter registration. This problem has plagued North Carolina elections for over 20 years. The former Democrat-led NCSBE acknowledged the mistake in 2023 and fixed the registration form but did nothing to fill in the missing information from previously registered voters.
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Republicans Clean Up the Mess
In late June, the new NCSBE responded to the lawsuit by launching the Registration Repair Project, a landmark effort to clean up voter rolls by providing missing identification data for approximately 103,000 registered voters. This shows the problem of incomplete voter registrations is greater than previously believed. State Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin (R) only challenged around 65,000 votes. The other questionably registered voters likely did not cast a ballot—but it doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.
The Registration Repair Project will launch an online database to fix the problem. County election boards will first check their records to see if they failed to put down the information. Those whose information they lack, they will contact at the beginning of August to ensure compliance with HAVA.
“We must put this issue behind us so we can focus our attention squarely on preparations for accurate and secure municipal elections this fall,” NCSBE Executive Director Sam Hayes told reporters.
Griffin additionally challenged overseas votes from people who have never resided in North Carolina. On July 21, the NCSBE voted to disallow this. These U.S. citizens, many of whom may have never set foot on American soil, had permission to vote in federal elections in North Carolina because they had a parent who once lived in the state. Although their numbers were small, the NCSBE estimated there were as many or slightly more of these voters in the last election than the margin by which Griffin’s opponent Allison Riggs (D) won in the hotly contested Supreme Court race.
As a presidential swing state that also vacillates between Republicans and Democrats in statewide elections, it’s imperative the NCSBE clear up concerns about election integrity. This will avoid further federal lawsuits, drawn-out legal fiascos like the state’s recent Supreme Court race, and depressed turnout among discouraged voters.
Same Tired Accusations of Voter Suppression
Democrats and liberal special interest groups object to the NCSBE’s response to the Justice Department’s lawsuit, claiming these efforts risk disenfranchising voters. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has even threatened legal action against the NCSBE for trying to bring the state in compliance with federal law.
The board, however, has stated that it will not remove eligible voters from the rolls as part of this process. Instead, NCSBE will simply give voters the opportunity to provide missing information. If they do not comply but show up to vote in the future, they will have to vote provisionally.
Democrats really like to raise the tried-and-failed savior argument. They claim their core constituencies like racial minorities and young voters lack things like identification to prove their existence and call any attempt to verify it Jim Crow-style voter suppression. But state law already covers this base by allowing voters to submit additional documentation like bank statements other government-issued documents with the voter’s name and address if the individual lacks a driver’s license.
In a closely divided state like North Carolina, where statewide races are sometimes decided by less than 1,000 votes, having over 100,000 questionable registered voters is a recipe for potential systemic fraud. Rather than address the very real issue of incomplete records, Democrats prefer to keep the status quo, which sows distrust in the validity of close elections. The new Republican-led NCSBE is putting in the hard work to fix Democrats’ decades-long sloppiness and will make North Carolina a bastion for election integrity going forward.
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