Voting rights group flags thousands of NC provisional ballots for review

A North Carolina voting rights organization is urging state election officials to closely review thousands of provisional ballots cast in last week’s general election. 

The group says its team found voters who may have been eligible to vote in their counties but were required to cast provisional ballots instead. 

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice said in a letter to the State Board of Elections that it identified 2,504 potential matches between provisional ballot records and the state’s voter registration files. 

The organization said some voters were listed as having no record of registration or as having previously been removed from the rolls, despite having matching records in the voter files. 

The North Carolina Board of Elections didn’t respond to NC Newsline’s request for comment on the group’s allegations. 

The findings come as county boards of elections review provisional ballots before the counties hold their canvasses Friday. These boards must determine whether those voters were eligible to vote and whether their votes can be counted. 

Hillary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights at the SCSJ, said the organization reviews ballot data after elections to examine who had to vote provisionally, why they did so, and whether their ballots are counted.  

This year, this group raised its concerns before the canvass because it found what it described as troubling patterns in the provisional ballot records. 

“This time we’re raising alarm bells during the election because we were concerned about all this purported messaging about something being wrong with our voter rolls, and that they have too many ineligible folks,” she said. 

The organization’s analysis identified two broad groups of voters. 

The first includes 1,562 voters whose provisional ballot records listed them as having no record of registration or as previously removed, but whom the organization matched to active or inactive voter registration records in the same county. 

The second group includes 942 voters the organization said had been removed through the state’s voter list maintenance process but later attempted to vote in the same county where they had previously been registered. 

SCSJ said it sent letters and county-specific lists to election officials in 46 counties where it identified potential matches. They said election workers could have made errors, like misspelling voters’ names, which can make voter records difficult to match. 

Klein said the first group includes voters with active and inactive registrations. Voters with inactive registrations are still eligible to vote, she said, though some may have had other reasons to cast a provisional ballot, such as moving within their county.

She said the group has found similar issues in previous election cycles. 

“We’ve consistently seen folks showing up to vote and learning that they’ve been kicked off the voter rolls,” she said. “The list maintenance is very aggressive in North Carolina.”

Voters can be removed from voter registration rolls for a variety of reasons. Those can include moving out of the state or moving to a different county, duplicate registration elsewhere, new conviction for a felony, or being considered inactive. 

Inactive voters are voters who did not cast ballots in at least two general elections and did not contact their county board of elections to verify eligibility. 

Last year, the state removed more than 400,000 inactive registrations from its voting base. 

North Carolina law provides a process for reinstating certain voters removed through the list maintenance process. Under state law, a voter who appears to vote and confirms they’ve continuously lived in the county may be reinstated.

The State Board of Elections says provisional ballots are used when questioning a voter’s eligibility to vote a particular ballot. 

Reasons can include a voter’s name not appearing on the registration rolls at their voting location, voting at the wrong precinct Election Day, or being unable to show a form of photo ID. Eligible provisional ballots are added to election results during the canvass period.

The state board’s canvass is scheduled for Nov. 24.