The State Board of Elections is sending letters to more than 241,000 North Carolina voters who provided identification numbers when they registered to vote that did not validate against other government databases.
The letters encourage these voters to update their voter records by providing their driver’s license or social security numbers or by ensuring the name on their voter registration matches other official government records. Voters who wish to update their name on their voter registration should contact their county board of elections.
This is part of ongoing efforts by the State Board to maintain accurate and current voter rolls. It will also make it easier for election officials to find these voters’ records in the future if they update their name, address, or other information. More accurate data in voters’ records, in turn, will help election officials with future voter roll maintenance, which often relies on database matching.
Importantly, this new effort in no way will affect any voter’s registration status. During elections, affected voters will be asked if they want to update their information at their voting site. They will still vote regular ballots even if they do not update their information, unless there is another reason they must vote a provisional ballot.
“This is just another way we are working to have the most accurate voter rolls in North Carolina history,” said Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “This effort does not affect the eligibility of any of these voters to cast ballots in our elections.”
This effort is separate from the Registration Repair Project, launched by the State Board last year. That project aims to collect ID numbers from voters who lack them altogether in the voter database.
Background
When voters register, the federal Help America Vote Act and state law require them to provide their driver’s license number (DL); or, if they lack one, the last four digits of their social security number (SSN4); or, if they lack both, an indication that they do not have these numbers.
Election officials attempt to validate the numbers by matching their name, date of birth, and ID numbers with records in the NCDMV or Social Security Administration databases.
For the voters who receive letters, this process did not result in a match. Mismatches can be caused by a difference in spelling from record to record (one record may use a hyphen, apostrophe or space, while another does not, for example) or the use of a prior legal name, such as a maiden name, in one of the records. The letters include voters’ names as they are spelled in the state’s voter registration database, so voters can check spellings against other official records.
Mismatches may also result from a date of birth, DL, or SSN4 being entered into the wrong database fields or from transposed numbers or typos in the records.
The letters list three ways the voters can submit information to update their records:
- By mail: Fill out a form at the bottom of the letter to provide identification information and return it to the State Board in a pre-addressed return envelope, with postage provided.
- Online: Recipients with North Carolina driver’s licenses or NCDMV ID cards may submit an updated voter registration form through the NCDMV’s secure website. Go to payments.ncdot.gov. There is no fee for this service. Click “Yes” when asked to update your voter information.
- In-person: Visit their county board of elections to submit the form in person and discuss their options with election officials.
Starting this summer, in January and August of each year, mailings will be sent to voters with unvalidated identification information on their voter records as part of a routine process to keep the state’s voter rolls as accurate and current as possible.