NC has a list of nearly 1600 people flagged as noncitizens on its voter rolls. How will it be used?

The North Carolina elections board says it has the names of nearly 1,600 potential noncitizens on its voter rolls who were flagged by a federal database. But as of two weeks ago, it hadn’t tried to contact any of them. 

The U. S. Supreme Court is allowing states to use a Homeland Security database called SAVE to look for noncitizens on voter rolls. North Carolina opted into using the SAVE database last year, and in July the state board sent an email saying it had identified 1,599 potential noncitizen voters on the rolls. 

However, it’s still not clear how the North Carolina Board of Elections will use that information. 

The board had not yet shared the names with county boards, board spokesman Jason Tyson said in a Sept. 11 email. “Additionally, neither the state board nor county boards have attempted to contact any individuals identified by SAVE as possibly being noncitizens,” he wrote. 

After the Supreme Court decision on Sept. 25 to allow the use of the database, state Elections Director Sam Hayes sent an email applauding it, saying he intended to use “every legal means in my disposal” to conduct voter list maintenance. 

“The State Board welcomes today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Both the United States Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution are clear: you must be a citizen of the United States to register and vote in our elections,” Hayes’ statement said. 

However, Hayes also added that “no voters will be automatically removed as a result of any voter list maintenance we do utilizing the database.”

In an email after Hayes’ statement, Tyson wrote, “[T]he plan on this has always been to operate within the parameters of the law. The ruling does have a lot of stipulations on timing which we plan to follow. There will be no automatic removals, of course, and the use of it is limited until after the election.”

Federal law prohibits voter roll purges within 90 days of an election. 

The state board in a party-line vote endorsed a rule for handling information about potential noncitizen voters gleaned from SAVE, NC Newsline has reported. The Rules Review Commission unanimously approved the rule in May, but it cannot be enforced because at least 10 people or organizations opposed it. With that opposition, the rule is being held for legislative review.

NC election officials approve new rules for noncitizen voter challenges

Under the procedure, when people are flagged as potential noncitizen registrants, their county’s elections administrators will be notified and will search their own records for proof of citizenship. If they can’t find any, people flagged would be called in to preliminary hearings to show documentation. If there’s a question after the preliminary hearings, the county boards will hold challenge hearings. 

The SAVE list is known to be inaccurate for mistakenly including citizens.

Texas was one of the first states to use the SAVE database to look for noncitizens registered to vote. Two weeks ago, the Texas Secretary of State said in a press release that of the 2,724 people the database flagged as potential noncitizens, 578 were actually citizens.