Election
officials respond to vote-bumping allegations
By Scott Nicholson
State elections officials defended themselves against
a report in The New York Times that suggested North Carolina was
among nine states illegally bumping voters from the rolls.
The Oct. 8 article said the dropping of voters could lead to long
lines at the polls and confusion among voters, and claimed the
Democratic Party would likely be disproportionately affected because
it has been more active in registering new voters.
State Board of Elections executive director Gary O. Bartlett fired
back that day, saying his office had not been contacted for the
article.
Bartlett said voters were not disenfranchised, as the article
suggested, and said the commissioner of the Social Security Administration
had not contacted the elections board about the use of Social
Security numbers as one of the verification measures used in checking
registration.
“The problem with these stories is they undermine the public’s
confidence in North Carolina’s elections,” Bartlett
said. “Our processes have been reviewed by both major presidential
campaigns, reviewed and pre-cleared by the U.S. Department of
Justice, and by independent advocacy organizations, such as Democracy
North Carolina.”
The New York Times article claimed voters have been removed from
the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear
to violate federal law, according to a review of state records
and Social Security data.
Bartlett said the elections officials use Social Security numbers
as one data source, relying primarily on drivers’ license
numbers
In Watauga County, the high number of Appalachian State University
students leads to a continual flux in the voter registration rolls,
as their “permanent residence” tends to last four years.
However, voters can stay active by voting or contacting the elections
office.
“We purged the last time in January 2007,” said Watauga
County elections director Jane Hodges. “We call it ‘list
maintenance.’
“We do that every two years, after every federal election.
If we have had any contact with them any time during that last
four years, they are active. We go by the past two federal elections.
We then make them ‘inactive’— we don’t actually
remove them.”
Hodges said the last maintenance yielded typical numbers for a
two-year period. “We normally have about 4,000 that we make
inactive every two years,” she said.
Bartlett said the use of Social Security numbers was an option
designed to make registration more universal, not limit it.
“This office is well aware that the Social Security database
was never intended to be used for this type of identification
process, but it was mandated by the Help America Vote Act and
implemented in North Carolina,” he said. “It is a tool
for those who do not have North Carolina drivers’ license
numbers.”
Bartlett said there are several safeguards in place to help keep
voters active.
Persons who have information missing are marked in the computer
database, and any people who believe they are registered can cast
a provisional ballot at the polls.
Provisional voters are then reviewed by the local elections board
during the canvass and their eligibility is determined based on
researching information.
“A voter whose name has been removed may be allowed to vote
a regular ballot if he or she has simply failed to report a move
within the county, or to provide other missing information that
will be researched by the county and to vote a provisional ballot
that will be counted if their qualifications are verified,”
Bartlett said.
The voting-advocacy group Democracy NC said most registration
errors were committed because of the “human element,”
with mistakes by the volunteer taking down the voter registration
information to turn over to the local elections board.
“Like all of us, elections officials make mistakes, but at
least in North Carolina there are a number of procedures in place
that minimize the chance that a person eligible to participate
in an election will be denied the right to vote and have that
vote counted,” said the group’s director, Bob Hall.
“We have worked with state and local election officials to
improve those procedures and agree with most national voting rights
advocates that North Carolina is a leader in the integrity of
its election administration system.”
The state is expecting a record growth in voter registration this
year, with an expected 850,000 new voters on the rolls. Locally,
more than 6,000 voters are either newly registered or have reported
a move within the county.
People are also allowed to register on the spot during the early,
one-stop voting period that begins Oct. 16.
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