County election boards across North Carolina removed over 747,000 “ineligible” voters from state voter rolls over the past 20 months, making up just under 10% of the state’s total count of registered voters.
The move sparked concern on social media as many accused the state of engaging in voter disenfranchisement just over a month out from Election Day. However, the North Carolina State Board of Elections maintained that the removals were part of “routine list maintenance.”
“List maintenance is one of the primary responsibilities of election officials across North Carolina, and we take this responsibility seriously,” said NCSBE Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell in a Sept. 26 release. “Unfortunately, there is a lot of false information out there about our voter rolls and the efforts we undertake to keep them up to date. As we conduct these processes, we also must comply with state and federal laws and be careful not to remove any eligible voters.”
There are currently nearly 7.7 million registered voters in North Carolina.
A number of recent lawsuits surrounding voter ID laws and the status of voter rolls in North Carolina have only added to the confusion surrounding voter eligibility for the upcoming general election.
The Chronicle broke down why the state removed the registrants and spoke to Duke political experts about other voter disenfranchisement threats facing the state.
Explaining the removals
Election boards across North Carolina began removing ineligible voters at the beginning of 2023 to maintain an up-to-date voter registration list. The NCSBE is barred from systematically removing voters within 90 days of an election, meaning no registrants could be removed after Aug. 7.
“It’s apparently not like they just went in last week and got rid of 750,000,” said Pope McCorkle, professor of the practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy. “This is the routine over the last couple of years that they’re reporting on.”
According to the NCSBE, 289,902 registrants were removed because a voter had relocated within the state, creating a duplicate registration. An additional 130,688 registrants were removed because the voter died, and 18,883 were deregistered due to a felony conviction.
Another 246,311 registrants were removed due to voter inactivity, meaning a voter skipped two consecutive federal general elections and did not respond to mailing requests from their county board of elections to confirm their eligibility.
31,242 registrants were removed after they relocated out of state, while 26,939 were found to be duplicate registrations. 2,329 voters requested to have their registration removed, and another 980 removals were labeled “other.”
Misinformation debunked
The removals elicited criticism and suspicion from North Carolinians over implications to various voting populations, with voter suppression emerging as a major concern.
Kerry Haynie, professor and chair of political science and professor of African American studies, pointed out that political parties can challenge individual voter registrations, which can result in voters being removed from state voter rolls as an act of voter suppression.
According to the News and Observer, the removals were not a “ploy” by the Republican Party to disenfranchise voters, as some social media posts have suggested. Furthermore, Democrats currently have a 3-2 majority on the NCSBE.
Gunther Peck, associate professor in the Sanford School, noted that although the existing policy may be fair in its intent, that “doesn’t mean it’s not unfair in its impact.” However, he noted that the recent removals were likely “not a partisan attempt to suppress the vote.”
McCorkle noted that while the removals seemed “very ordinary and routine,” the board has not published data on which communities were most affected.
Haynie agreed that cleanups are a normal process, but pointed to “increased activity” of election boards in many states since the 2020 cycle.
Senior Chloe Decker, student chair of Duke Votes — a nonpartisan, student-led voter registration organization on campus — said students should not be significantly concerned about being taken off of voter rolls if they want to vote in North Carolina.
The state does not notify voters when they have been removed, but voters are able to check their registration online.
“We've been working non-stop with Duke administrators, representatives from Student Affairs [and] Duke [Housing and Residence Life] to send all this information about voting out to students,” Decker said.
Decker advised students to check their registration before the Oct. 11 deadline. Early voting, which will include same-day registration, is scheduled to take place between Oct. 17 and Nov. 2.
Citizens who do not appear on voter registration rolls will be given a provisional ballot at their polling location, after which their county board of elections will research their eligibility status to determine whether the ballot should be counted. According to the NCSBE, county board of elections staff look for evidence of a registration attempt in cases where an individual “claims to have registered.”
According to a June report by Duke students now involved in the newly established North Carolina Voting Rights Lab, 52% of provisional ballots in North Carolina were thrown out during the March 2024 primary election. The rejection rate was 37% for Durham County and 61.7% for Duke students.
Other legal challenges
The publicity surrounding the registration roll cleanup comes on the heels of other legal challenges to voter eligibility in the state.
In August, the N.C. GOP and Republican National Committee filed a major lawsuit alleging that the NCSBE violated federal law by failing to check the identity of 225,000 registrants, making it possible for noncitizens to vote.
McCorkle said that the board likely “chose to highlight [the cleanup] so that they would have some ammunition for being able to say to the court when the court case comes up, ‘look we’re doing our job.’” He argued that the case — not the cleanup — should be the real concern.
“I think what raises eyebrows is the Republicans are suing … the State Board of Elections for being derelict,” McCorkle said.
The suit was transferred to federal court Sept. 25, and a hearing was set for Oct. 17 after U.S. Chief District Judge Richard Myers granted the NCSBE’s request to expedite consideration of its motion to dismiss the case.
On Friday, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill could not use their digital student ID to vote, meaning students will have to use an alternative form of identification when they cast their ballots in the upcoming election.
Peck criticized the decision, saying it was “clear” that “one of the major parties in our state is literally, explicitly trying to suppress the student vote” by requiring physical IDs for students who may not have one. He also critiqued the GOP’s argument that a digital ID is more prone to fraud, arguing there is “no evidence of that whatsoever.”
Brimson Bell emphasized that the NCSBE has received “extremely little evidence that individuals are voting in the names of others in North Carolina elections.”
“If the state board loses this case, it means that digital ID for the foreseeable future is toast, and that will be very bad for Duke students,” Peck said. “… Until there's a new legal challenge, you're going to have to have a special voting ID.”
DukeVotes is providing the Class of 2027 with physical IDs to meet the state’s recently implemented photo ID requirement. The mobile DukeCard was not approved as an acceptable photo ID by the NCSBE, prompting the University to move back to distributing physical IDs after going fully digital last year.
If the Board of Elections appeals the case, it will land before the North Carolina Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 conservative majority.
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Samanyu Gangappa is a Trinity sophomore and local/national news editor for the news department.