Nearly 3,400 voters in Catawba, Iredell, Burke and McDowell counties are listed by the North Carolina State Board of Elections as needing to add their driver’s license number and/or the last four digits of their Social Security number to their registration.
The board as the centerpiece of its “Registration Repair Project.” The link is .
The elections board was switched in May from Democratic to Republican control through a controversial new state law.
“The Registration Repair Project aims to ensure that North Carolina’s voter rolls are as accurate and complete as possible, bring them into compliance with recent state court rulings, and settle a pending lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice,” the elections board said in a news release.
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The law gives voters three options for addressing their registration issues:
- Submit an updated voter registration form through the state Division of Motor Vehicles’ website at
- . Click “Continue as Guest” when asked to log in to myNCDMV. Click “Yes” when asked to update your voter information.
- Request registration assistance at a county board of elections office.
- The elections board will send out in August letters to individuals on the list with information on how to address their registration. The letter can be mailed it to their county board of elections in the pre-addressed return envelope enclosed with the letter. Postage is provided on the envelope.
Statewide, there are 102,953 affected voters, of which 55.6%, or 57,240, live in the 22 counties carried by former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and 44.4%, or 45,713, live in the 78 counties carried by President Donald Trump.
“This search tool is updated daily to reflect the current list of voters who must provide” those identification numbers “to ensure they can vote a regular ballot, rather than a provisional ballot,” according to the website link.
Reasoning behind change
The election board said that “faulty instructions on a voter registration form used in North Carolina for about a decade led some voters to register without providing either number. The voter registration form was corrected in January 2024 to make it clear that one of those numbers is required.”
Sam Hayes, who was named as the board’s executive director in May, said Thursday “this project will not result in the removal of any eligible voter from the voter rolls, as some have inaccurately suggested.”
“Instead, it will result in cleaner, more complete voter rolls and full compliance with state and federal laws,” Hayes said. “We have gone to great lengths to make this process as straightforward and transparent as possible for the affected voters.
“We fully expect the number of voters on the list will decrease quickly.”
The 100 county boards of elections “to immediately begin scouring election records for the affected voters to attempt to locate identification numbers that may not have been properly entered into the voter registration system, or other evidence that the voter has complied with state and federal laws.”
In future elections, in-person voters who have not provided the required information to update their registration will be required to vote a provisional ballot and provide the required information when they vote.
The state elections board said it is “creating a flag” to appear on these voters’ records in the electronic or paper poll books used at voting sites to alert poll workers that these voters must vote provisional ballots and provide the missing information for their ballot to count.
Background
In December, the then-Republican supermajorities in both chambers approved , which switched who appoints the chair of the State Board of Elections and the 100 county boards away from the party of the governor to the party of the treasurer.
Republican Dave Boliek was elected in December to his first term as state treasurer.
Both chambers overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of SB382.
Both Cooper and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein are suing the constitutionality of SB382, saying the legislation violates the separation of powers established in the constitution.
Defendants are Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and former House speaker Tim Moore.
The question of missing driver’s license and Social Security information was a key complaint of Jefferson Griffin, the Republican N.C. Supreme Court candidate who unsuccessfully challenged the validity of votes across North Carolina.
The protracted election fight between Griffin and his Democratic opponent Allison Riggs affected many in the Triad, including
In May, the state Court of Appeals ruled the elections law could still be enforced while its constitutionality is deliberated after trial judges ruled that SB382 violated the N.C. Constitution.
Boliek acted quickly to appoint three Republicans and two Democrats to the state elections board, with the nominees picked from lists provided by the state parties. The expectations had been that Boliek would appoint Republicans as chair in all 100 county boards to provide Republicans would have a 3-2 majority.
Stein said in a statement that “in recent years, these legislative leaders have repeatedly tried and failed to seize control of the State Board of Elections for their own partisan gain.”
“This latest move insults the voters who rejected their power grab, violates our Constitution, and must not stand.”
The lawsuit claims SB382 is the sixth time since 2016 that Berger, Moore and other legislative leaders have tried “to wrest executive authority over the State Board of Elections away from the governor.” The lawsuit provides details on all six attempts.
Berger said when the Senate voted 30-19 along party lines to override Cooper’s veto of SB382 that “it’s no secret that our State Board of Elections has been plagued by political interference from the governor’s office.”
“Now, we are moving forward with a solution that will place the state board under the Office of the State Auditor and rid election administration of the blatant partisan politics that have destroyed the state board’s credibility and impartiality,” Berger said at the time.
