NC Election Security & Registration Rolls Status

Are NC Elections Secure & Registration Rolls Purged?

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security’s July 16 release of new election-integrity documents highlights important facts the public needs to know.

To begin with, the Department of Homeland Security now requires states to accurately reconcile the number of participating voters with the ballots cast before certification to receive full federal funding.

DHS Requires States to Adopt Common-Sense Election Security Measures Before Receiving Federal Funds

Based on past elections, meeting this new standard could prove challenging for North Carolina.

Key Findings from the July 16 SAVE Report

(SAVE is an online service for registered federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local government agencies to verify immigration status and U.S. citizenship of applicants seeking benefits or licenses.)

The White House and Department of Homeland Security released multiple documents across four separate sections related to Election Integrity. This post focuses only on the report showing deceased individuals and non-U.S. citizens identified on voter rolls in states using the SAVE system — including North Carolina.

The report flagged 34,622 deceased individuals and 1,599 non-U.S. citizens on North Carolina’s voter rolls. While the NCSBE had previously disclosed roughly the same number of deceased registrants, the 1,599 non-U.S. citizen figure was new.

White House/DHS Report: Election Integrity - Noncitizens on State Voter Rolls

North Carolina did not submit its full list. The results reported by DHS only reflect what could be identified from the incomplete voter list North Carolina submitted. Approximately 349,000 eligible registration records were not submitted. These fell into the following categories:

1. SSN was obtained but failed identity verification with the Social Security

Administration,

2. Only a driver’s license number was obtained,

3. SSN was never obtained because it was not legally required prior to 2004, or

4. The applicants stated they had neither a driver’s license nor a Social Security

Number.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the NCSBE and DHS/USCIS requires states to submit records that contain at least one permitted identifier (such as an SSN). The MOA does not restrict submissions based on whether SSA identity verification previously succeeded or failed.

Memorandum of Agreement between DHS/USCIS and NCSBE

The MOA requires either a DHS-issued enumerator or "other government-issued enumerator permitted by SAVE." SSN qualifies under that category. SAVE now accepts the last four digits of SSN as a valid enumerator for verification requests.

USCIS News Releases - 11/3/2025

Not Submitted to SAVE: Voters with Unverified Identities

When an applicant's identity verification with the SSA fails, the applicant is still registered. Under NCGS 163-166.12(d), they were permitted to prove identity using a driver’s license, utility bill, or other unofficial document when voting in person for the first time. According to the NCSBE IT staff, the SSN4 was still retained in SEIMS, so these records should have been submitted to SAVE.

 Removal of Deceased Voters & Potential Errors

According to Executive Director Sam Hayes, voters who are confirmed deceased will not be removed from the voter rolls. He stated that the county boards cannot act on death notifications obtained from the federal SAVE data. He explained that North Carolina law has a gap that currently prevents the use of new, reliable information from official government sources. A legislative change would be needed before they could remove records of the confirmed deceased individuals. (See PRR #26-150, July 10, 2026 statement — in the Details & Resources section below.)

When eligible voters are removed by the county boards in error, those voters can simply cast a provisional ballot when they show up to vote and would then be reinstated. Because North Carolina’s voter rolls do not contain complete or accurate registration information for every voter, removing living voters as deceased does happen.

Before completing any investigation, the NCSBE staff suggested that the 34,622 deceased records are due to voters who moved out of state and passed away, so the NCSBE did not receive death notifications. This claim was made just 10 days after the voter rolls were submitted to SAVE.

(See also PRR #26-150, July 8, 2026 remarks from a Public Records staff member — in the Details & Resources section below.)

When one voter is registered under multiple voter IDs (duplicate registrations), and the voter passes away, at times only one registration record is removed. The duplicate record can remain in an eligible status on the voter rolls.

For instance, in the examples below (of which there are many), the records appear to belong to the same voter (same birth year, same or very similar name, same address).

·  On the registration where identity verification was successful, the voter was changed to Removed/Deceased status upon receiving the death notification.

·  On the registration where identity verification failed, the record remains in an eligible status — and these are among the records not submitted to DHS/USCIS for analysis.

To build greater public trust, it would be helpful if the NCSBE acknowledged this as a known issue in their voter registration system and took steps to address duplicate registrations more effectively. This issue has been raised with the NCSBE since February 2024, including through a formal HAVA Complaint.

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