State election board corrects over 20,000 records, seeks more ID numbers

More than 20,000 voter registration records for people in North Carolina have been fixed under the North Carolina State Election Board’s (NCSBE) “Registration Repair Project,” but election officials are now mailing the remaining 82,540 individuals whose records still need updating.

On July 17, the NCSBE kicked off a major initiative with the Project to collect missing identification numbers from roughly 103,270 registered voters whose records lack the required ID information. 

The project aims to bring the state’s voter rolls into compliance with both federal and state laws, recent court rulings, and an ongoing lawsuit with the US Department of Justice. The Board unanimously approved the three-part plan at its June 24 meeting. 

As part of the project, voters receiving the mailings will be asked to provide either their driver’s license number (DL#) or the last four digits of their social security number (SSN4) as their records lack one or both of those numbers, and are required by state and federal laws.

Under the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which took effect in 2004, all voter registrations must include either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of Social Security numbers. However, for nearly a decade, North Carolina’s voter registration form lacked clear instructions, resulting in tens of thousands of registrations being submitted without the required information.

The new mailings encourage recipients to provide their identification numbers in one of the following ways:

By mail – Fill out the form at the bottom of the letter, sign it, and mail it to the State Board of Elections in the enclosed pre-addressed return envelope. Postage is provided on the envelope.

Online – A person with an NC driver’s license or DMV ID card can submit an updated voter registration form through the NCDMV’s secure website. Go to payments.ncdot.gov. There is no fee for this service. They can click “Yes” when asked to update their voter information.

In person- A person can also visit their county board of elections office and provide the required information. However, they cannot update their registration by phone.

“It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s free,” said Sam Hayes, NCSBE Executive Director, in a press release on Monday. “We strongly encourage all voters on the Registration Repair list to take action now and avoid any issues the next time they show up to vote.”

North Carolinians can search whether they are on the list via the Registration Repair Search Tool, which is updated daily.

Election officials note that if a voter receives a letter but has already repaired their registration and no longer appears on the list, they do not have to take any additional action.

Since the launch of the Registration Repair Project, the registrations of more than 20,000 voters have been fixed through a combination of research by the county boards of elections and the response of individual voters to update their registration records.

In future elections, in-person voters who still have not provided the required information to update their registration must vote with a provisional ballot and provide the information (DL# or SSN4) when they vote.

The state board 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.

County boards of elections will train poll workers accordingly.

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