The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted today to adopt new rules that critics fear will lead to the removal of eligible voters from state voter rolls.
The 3-2 vote came despite overwhelming public outcry against the measure, which will allow elections officials to flag “potential noncitizen” voters based on checks of “government records and databases,” like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification of Eligibility, or SAVE, system.
The state board received more than 14,000 public comments regarding the proposed changes, according to Adam Steele, the board’s associate general counsel. Most expressed concerns over the new rules, which go into effect June 1. In response to some concerns, board staff added clarifying language and clearer instructions for county boards and challenged voters, and greater flexibility around hearing noticing. Earlier rule language referred to challenged voters as “presumptive noncitizens.”
During the contentious meeting, the state board’s three Republican members all voted in favor of the new rules, while the board’s two Democrats opposed the measure.
Before voting in support, Republican board member Stacy “Four” Eggers said the process “guarantees due process” for challenged voters and that the board’s “obligation is to the accuracy of our records.”
“An ineligible voter is the same problem as someone who is denied the vote,” Eggers said. “Those are two sides of the same coin.”
In response, Democratic board member Jeff Carmon pushed back, saying “Due process to one, is a poll tax to another.”
Previously, critics of the rules, which come as President Donald Trump is aggressively pushing for stricter voting requirements including proof of citizenship, feared eligible voters will be removed from voter rolls during the challenge process.
They also cited specific concerns regarding the reliability of the SAVE system, which has traditionally been used to determine eligibility for government benefits, not voting.
According to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and other advocacy groups opposed to the measure, “recent changes to the SAVE system have introduced highly unreliable citizenship information and resulted in other states having eligible voters’ citizenship wrongly questioned.”
North Carolina’s own audit of the 2016 election also questioned the SAVE system’s accuracy in determining the citizenship status of a voter.
According to the audit, “a match with the SAVE database is not a reliable indicator that a person is not a U.S. citizen because the database is not always updated in a timely manner and individuals who derived citizenship from their parents through naturalization or adoption may show up as non-citizens in SAVE.”
What happens if I am identified as a "potential noncitizen?”
State elections officials had already approved a plan in November to use the SAVE system to identify potential noncitizens. During the meeting, Steele confirmed the state’s voter database is scheduled to be sent to DHS as soon as Friday.
Now, if a voter is flagged, the board of elections in the county where the voter is registered will receive a “notice of non-citizenship.” That notice will include the source, like SAVE, used to identify the voter as a potential noncitizen.
The county board of elections has five days to determine if the voter has already provided proof of citizenship, which could include a birth certificate, passport, or documentation showing a parent’s citizenship.
If no proof of citizenship already exists, the county’s elections director will formally challenge the voter’s eligibility and schedule a preliminary hearing, where the voter will have the opportunity to present identification showing they are a lawful citizen. That hearing must be held no earlier than 10 business days and no later than 20 business days after the preliminary hearing notice is sent to the voter.
If the county board finds probable cause that the challenged voter isn’t a U.S. citizen, then another hearing before the board will be held to determine the voter’s eligibility. If the challenge is upheld, the voter may appeal the ruling to the county’s Superior Court.
The measure did not provide additional funding for county boards of elections to assume these new responsibilities.
What types of documents can voters use to prove citizenship?
According to the state board of elections, voters can use originals or copies of these documents issued by state, federal or tribal governments to prove citizenship:
- Birth certificate
- Document showing place of birth issued by a vital records office
- Passport or passport card issued by the U.S. Department of State
- Consular report of birth abroad issued by the State Department
- Certificate of citizenship or naturalization issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Documents showing the citizenship of a parent paired with documentation indicating the parental relationship to the voter
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.