County election boards have removed nearly 750,000 ineligible registered voters from the state’s voter rolls over the past 20 months, including nearly 5,700 in the five-county area.
The N.C. State Board of Elections released data Thursday showing that 747,247 total voters were removed from the state’s voter rolls between January 2023 and August 2024, which is an average of more than 1,200 voters removed a day.
That total included 5,697 ineligible voters registered in Pasquotank, Currituck, Chowan, Perquimans and Camden counties. Pasquotank had the largest number of registered voters in the region removed: 2,069. Currituck was second with 1,482; Perquimans third with 898; Chowan fourth with 727 and Camden last with 521.
In a press release, the state board said county boards “follow careful policies to ensure that only ineligible records are removed.” Among the reasons the state board lists for removing a voter include: the voter moving either to a different county or out of state; the voter spending two federal general elections in “inactive status” — meaning they didn’t vote — and then not responding to mailings from their county board of elections attempting to confirm their eligibility; the voter dying; the voter being convicted of a felony and still serving either a sentence, probation, post-release supervision, or parole; the voter having a duplicate registration in another county; the voter asking to be removed or being the subject of a successful voter challenge; or the voter not being a U.S. citizen.
According to the state elections board, the overwhelming majority of the voters removed from the state rolls — 71% — were removed for the first two reasons: they either had moved elsewhere in the state or they were inactive for two straight federal elections — a period of eight years — and didn’t respond to their county board’s inquiries. The next largest number — 130,688 — were removed because they were deceased. Another 18,883 were removed for felony convictions and 2,329 were removed as the result of a successful challenge.
The state elections board said removals for not having U.S. citizenship are not specifically coded in the state’s elections database. Any removals for noncitizenship would be coded under either “request from a voter” or “other.” According to the state board, only 980 voters were removed for the “other” reason.
The state board said its “list maintenance processes” add and remove registration cards every day, and are required by state and federal laws. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said list maintenance is one of the “primary responsibilities” of election officials in the state, one they take very seriously.
“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,” she said in the release. “As we conduct these processes, we also must comply with state and federal laws and be careful not to remove any eligible voters.”
Maintaining the voter registration list is an ongoing process, with the goal of “having the most accurate voter rolls possible,” the release said. Currently the state has nearly 7.7 million registered voters.
The state board said its process of list maintenance “evolves over time,” as election officials find new ways to identify “potentially invalid or inaccurate registrations.” There are several factors, however, that will cause those registrations to not initially be identified for removal.
“For example, voters die every day, but official death records may not reach election officials until weeks later,” the board said. “And people move out of the state every day without canceling their North Carolina registration. Eventually, list maintenance processes catch up with those individuals, and they are removed from the rolls.”
Just because an ineligible voter shows up on the voter rolls does not mean voter fraud will occur, the board said.
“Evidence shows that voting in the name of another is exceedingly rare in North Carolina,” the release said.
The board noted that a 2017 audit of the 2016 presidential election, in which nearly 4.8 million North Carolina voters cast ballots, identified only two cases “in which family members voted in the place of a recently deceased loved one.”
The board noted that the photo ID requirement that went into effect for the 2024 general election also makes it difficult for one voter to feloniously cast a ballot in the name of another voter.
“We have extremely little evidence that individuals are voting in the names of others in North Carolina elections, and the voter photo ID requirement will help ensure this does not happen,” Bell said.
Election officials said they are also working on additional efforts aimed at maintaining more accurate voter rolls and removing those ineligible to vote.
One such law change, which took effect July 1, requires clerks of superior court to provide lists of voters who request to be excused from jury duty because they claimed they were not U.S. citizens. In August, the clerks provided that data to the state elections board, which matched them with North Carolina’s voter rolls. Nine individuals matched statewide, the state board said.
The board is in the process of checking those nine voters against state and federal databases to determine whether they have obtained citizenship.
“If that check does not show they are now citizens, the state board will send them letters informing them of the agency’s findings and inviting them to cancel their registrations to comply with the law,” the board said. “It is a felony to register to vote or vote if you are not a U.S. citizen.”
Additionally, over the past couple years, at the urging of citizen activists, the state board said it’s initiated a series of automated data checks designed to correct data entry errors and other inaccuracies in the voter registration database. After reports from these checks are sent the county boards, officials there look for the following data: duplicate voter registration numbers; data entered into the wrong registration fields; possible invalid voter birth years; possible invalid voter registration dates; and duplicate driver’s license numbers.
The county boards then review and research those records and take corrective action when it’s warranted, the board said.
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