1,425 NC voters in question
Published October 27, 2014
by Bertrand Gutierrez, Winston-Salem Journal, October 24, 2014.
The State Board of Elections said Friday that 1,425 names on the voter rolls of North Carolina belong to people who likely do not meet one basic requirement to cast a ballot: U.S. citizenship.
Statewide, 262 have voted in past elections, officials said.
Also Friday, the SBOE received an emailed letter from a coalition of civil-rights groups: Project Vote, Demos, Fair Elections Legal Network, American Civil Liberties Union, NALEO Education Fund, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and Action NC.
Citing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the group expressed “deep concern about the way in which the State Board of Elections is identifying and potentially removing voters who it alleges are noncitizens,” according to the letter, obtained by the Winston-Salem Journal in a public records request.
Continuing, the group said in the letter: “The NVRA prohibits North Carolina from conducting any program ‘the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters’ during the ninety-day period preceding an election.”
The list of 1,425 names is only as accurate as the databases against which they were checked, according to the group, citing several ways in which the main federal database on naturalized citizens has produced errors in the past.
Josh Lawson, an SBOE spokesman, said that the SBOE cannot just pull a name off the voter rolls. There has to be due process, he said, referring to a list of state statutes as guidance for local elections officials to challenge ballots that may be cast by those whom the SBOE has flagged.
“We are continuing to analyze the list. Challenging someone is an extraordinary step, so we want to be as confident as possible,” Lawson said.
Earlier this week, Lawson said that the state elections board would send letters seeking proof of citizenship to all the people who have been flagged. At the end of the week, he said that letters will not be sent to all the individuals.
Rather, challenges would be made if they try to vote, he said. In those instances, letters would be sent to the individual informing him or her of the challenge and the process by which to respond.
Challenges to absentee ballots are made on Election Day – in this case, Nov. 4 – and are heard the day before canvass, he said, referring to one-stop early voting, which is a form of absentee voting. Election Day challenges are heard when the voter shows up to cast a ballot, he said.
By the numbers
Election officials gave a breakdown by county of the 1,425 people they have flagged as possible ineligible voters.
The largest counties had the largest numbers: 73 in Forsyth County; 115 in Guilford County; 252 in Wake County; 313 in Mecklenburg County.
Statewide, 109 are likely in the U.S. under the federal program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, officials said. The 109 tally is lower than the 145 – and then 119 – reported earlier this week by elections officials because of further investigation, officials said.
DACA provides qualified younger immigrants a two-year reprieve from deportation but no direct path to citizenship.
Ken Raymond, the chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Elections, seemed taken aback by the numbers.
"There are a lot of people at the local and state level that are working hard to ensure the integrity of our voting process and to hear that there are 1,425 illegal registrations on our voter rolls is extremely troubling, especially since so many people are working to keep the voter rolls clean," Raymond said in an email.
Later, he continued: "Regarding the 73 illegal registrations in Forsyth County, that's something we're going to talk about during our next meeting."
The SBOE arrived at the 1,425 names based on a larger list – the latest one had 10,351 – of people whom the board had been flagged as possible noncitizens.
The state elections board then used an automated system designed this week to go through the list, according to Lawson.
Elections officials used a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database, known as SAVE, to find the 1,425 out of the larger list – or those who do not show up as having citizenship.
Against the SAVE database, the SBOE cross checked names and addresses on state voter rolls as well as in a database provided by the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.
The DMV database contained names of license holders who were not U.S. citizens when they got a license.
They may have been green-card holders, foreign workers or DACA recipients, for example. While the 1,425 did not show up as citizens in the Homeland Security database, the other 8,926 did, according to the elections board analysis. Those license holders apparently became U.S. citizens since getting a license.
Earlier this month, the state elections board manually cross-checked about 1,600 names, Lawson said, and found that 94 percent are U.S. citizens, which meant that 6 percent were not citizens.
The current ratio of noncitizens is much higher: more than 14 percent, or 1,425 of 10,351.
In North Carolina, the state voter rolls contained the names of 6,617,536 individuals, as of last Saturday.
October 27, 2014 at 9:46 am
Norm Kelly says:
So, what does all of this prove?
Simple. Voter fraud is not just possible, but is actually happening. Contrary to the claims of every lib out there, the buffet slayer, and the N&D editorial board.
DACA provides a 2 year reprieve from deportation but NO DIRECT PATH TO CITIZENSHIP. What does this mean? It means that if someone shows up on the DACA list or says someone is DACA eligible, they SHOULD NOT be on ANY voter roll. If they are not citizens, which they obviously are NOT, then they should NOT be registered to vote. Regardless of how the feds want to handle DACA eligible people, they are NOT legal citizens and therefore NOT allowed to LEGALLY vote. There is no excuse for allowing even 1 DACA person to vote. None! Even the rose colored glasses, or closed minds & eyes, of libs has to show this to be true.
There MIGHT be a federal law that prevents any jurisdiction from purging voter rolls within 90 days of an election. But it didn't sound like there was a purging going on, so the libs fighting to keep voter fraud viable seem to be pushing a rope. This article and all the others I've read concerning insuring LEGAL citizens are voting simply state that the rolls are being investigated. Not purged. Simple investigation to make sure the upcoming election is accurate and legal. So long as the rolls are NOT purged during this process, but this process is used as a means to purge the rolls AFTER the election, then the process is not just correct but also RIGHT! Seems that libs are against everything that is RIGHT - they must associate being right/correct with being RIGHT WING/conservative. There is a distinction that libs seem to miss. The difference, however, between modern day American libs and European socialists is non-existent.
What is the source of the information on legal vs illegal residents? A federal database! Are those complaining saying that this is ANOTHER area where the feds have failed to do their job? Is this another area where federal employees or agencies are not properly doing their job but no corrective or disciplinary action will be taken? Could it be that faith in our government, misplaced from the start, is now being questioned by the lack of jobs being done, citizens being targeted by their government, while at the same time ignoring consequences for inactivity? Right-wingers have been complaining for years that government employees are overpaid and under-performing. What have the past 6 years shown us? The Right-wingers have been right/correct. Sh*t really does roll down hill. Starts at the top, runs down. The current occupier is probably the most unqualified, useless occupant in American history, incapable of doing the most basic tasks of the office, and that incompetence flows through the agencies 'below' that office. When members of the administration fail to do their job, or completely violate the law (do ILLEGAL acts) the occupier fails to respond. Repeatedly. What happens? Everyone soon realizes that they can do anything they want, or do NOTHING AT ALL, and there will be no consequences.
A judge recently declared that the IRS targeting of conservative groups was resolved. Why? Did the judge say that the IRS didn't break the law? No. Did the judge say that conservative groups WERE NOT targeted? No. The judge said that the IRS finally did it's job, the plaintiff got the tax-exempt status they applied for, so all the illegal activity by IRS employees would be ignored. No punishment. No consequences. Clear violation of the law. No response. Why? Because they are FEDERAL EMPLOYEES who have been given immunity by the acts and attitude of the most unqualified occupant in HISTORY!
Everything lib is so irritating that it causes conservative brains to explode. There is NO LOGIC or thought process in the average lib mind, none at all in the editorial board at the N&D, and demonstrably none in demon pols. Take a look at Debbie WS, the head of the DNC, watch her videos, read her statements, understand quickly that she lacks sufficient brain power to be logical or thoughtful. Witness Billary who says that American BUSINESSES are incapable of creating JOBS! Anyone who sucks down the stup1d1ty spouting out of the mouth of this jurk will obviously vote for her just because she's a woman (or pick any other nonsense excuse for accepting her!). I know that we need a few libs in the country to remind us of what's wrong, what NOT to do, how NOT to run a government, but there are simply too many of them now. There are too many thoughtless libs in power that it concerns me about the future of our country. The history of socialism is clear. And destructive, regardless of who is in control of it!
Illegal voters MUST be removed from the rolls ANYTIME of the year. The law protecting illegal voters MUST be overturned. Protecting LEGAL voters is admirable. Protecting ILLEGAL voters is shameful. Libs seem to see no difference between LEGAL and ILLEGAL voters. So long as EVERYONE gets a chance to vote, libs want us to be hands off! No thought process there!
October 27, 2014 at 11:56 am
Richard Bunce says:
Either voter requirements are verified or not. If they are verified they need to be more than just the voters word... otherwise eliminate the requirement so everyone knows the real rules.
In this case clearly the voter registration verification process is not working... and this is just on one of the voter requirements, being an American Citizen which is one of the easiest to check. Do we think in prison, a felon, a resident, at least 18, not dead, etc requirements are being verified any better?
