The results of an investigation released this week by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) reveal the voter rolls of the state of North Carolina are replete with errors.
By comparing the state’s registered voter list with the Social Security Death Index, PILF investigators found that 7,933 deceased North Carolinians are still registered to vote.
Some dead people have remained on the list for more than 20 years.
PILF investigators also discovered that 13,525 North Carolinians are registered to vote twice—60 percent of whom had identical registration information on each listing, making one a true duplicate.
Another 18 percent were registered twice because their middle name was spelled out in full, and then registered a second time using only the first initial of the middle name.
And, 15 percent of the 13,525 who were registered twice, were registered once under their maiden name and once under their married name.
PILF’s investigation also determined that 3,438 former North Carolinians, who moved out of the state before the 2020 election and registered to vote in another state, voted in North Carolina.
The study did not determine if the 3,438 people registered in both states voted in their new home state as well.
- PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a March 29 press release: “Silly, obvious errors in the voter roll can create opportunities for voter fraud and chaos in a close election. Correcting deceased and duplicate records now will help to preemptively address those risks.”
“However, we will investigate any credible allegation of irregularities or voter fraud,” said Gannon.
When asked what percentage of dead people on the voting rolls is acceptable in North Carolina, Gannon could not say, and he would not commit the board to a zero-tolerance policy.
Gannon raised questions about PILF’s procedures in gathering the data presented in its report, saying that “without more information, it is impossible to verify the information the organization is putting forward.”
Gannon stated: “The assumption that not clean voter rolls are more susceptible to fraud is just that—an assumption. In North Carolina there is no evidence that names that should have been removed are actually being used to vote.”
The NCSBE website makes it clear that North Carolina election law requires a person desiring to vote by mail to file a request for an absentee ballot by a paper form or online. The forms are available in English or Spanish.
The applicant must produce a North Carolina driver license, an ID card issued by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, or provide the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Upon receipt of the absentee ballot, the voter must mark it before a notary or in the presence of two witnesses. The secretly marked ballot is then to be placed in a provided and approved return envelope. The envelope must then be signed by the voter and the notary or both witnesses, who must write their addresses along with their full names.
PILF’s report cited data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; Election Administration and Voting Surveys for 2020, which showed that North Carolina had 2,680 absentee ballots come back marked “undeliverable.”
The surveys showed the state had nearly 86,000 unaccounted-for ballots requested by voters.
According to the surveys, in November 2020, 15 million mail-in ballots were unaccounted-for nationwide, with another 1.1 million absentee ballots marked undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service.
According to the PILF report, an undeliverable ballot usually results from out-of-date voter data. Unaccounted-for ballots, also referred to as “Unknown” ballots, are those transmitted without tracking that never returned for counting.
“In other words, local authorities do not know what happened to the ballots,” the PILF report said.
“North Carolina officials need to use the time they still have to prepare voter rolls for the midterm elections … which include a U.S. Senate race that may be very close,” stated Adams.
