Republicans mean to “win” by any means necessary
Republican plans for stealing upcoming elections have discreet elements that are all of a piece. We’re seeing another piece this month in North Carolina. But let’s start with last year. The Brennan Center explains:
Since May, the Trump administration has been on a quest to collect complete voter files from almost every state. Most states have refused the Justice Department’s unprecedented demands for the data, which includes driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. The government has sued more than 20 states over that refusal. But at least 10 states — home to over 37 million registered voters — have provided their full voter lists to the federal government.
The DOJ has asked states to agree to a “confidential memorandum of understanding” in connection with handing over their full voter files. That agreement reveals both the DOJ’s plans to interfere with the states’ authority to run elections and how dangerously insecure the sensitive data will be in the department’s hands. It provides yet more evidence of the administration’s campaign to interfere with upcoming elections.
[…]
The agreement explains that the DOJ plans to conduct its own analysis of states’ voter files and then instruct the states to remove specific voters, which the federal government has never done before. This would turn the American system of election administration upside down. It is the states, not the federal government, that have the statutory authority — not to mention the expertise — to add and remove voters from the rolls. States also have procedures in place to guard against eligible voters being wrongly removed.
North Carolina is making preparations for handing over its files after some tidying up.
In advance of Gov. Josh Stein (D) taking office in January, the Republican-controlled legislature stripped the governor’s appointment powers to the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) and transferred them to the newly elected state auditor, a Republican. Then in the wake of Republican’s losing a months-long court battle over a 2024 state Supreme Court election, NCSBE launched its registration repair project. Its goal is to ensure every registration complies with the identification requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Judge Jefferson Griffin, the Republican, had attempted to have tens of thousands of votes disqualified based on those voters’ registrations’ alleged lack of complete data:
Today, the State Board of Elections formally launched its comprehensive effort to collect identification numbers — driver’s license numbers (DL#) or the last four digits of social security numbers (SSN4) — for about 103,000 voters missing them on the state’s voter rolls.
The Registration Repair Project aims to ensure that North Carolina’s voter rolls are as accurate and complete as possible, bring them into compliance with recent state court rulings, and settle a pending lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice. The State Board unanimously approved the plan at its June 24 meeting.
Voters on this list who have not “repaired” registrations will receive provisional ballots when they attempt to vote.
But the GOP-controlled board was not done. Voters on the rolls whose registrations already contain DLs and SSN4s are now targets. On February 3, NCSBE issued this press release:
The State Board of Elections is sending letters to more than 241,000 North Carolina voters who provided identification numbers when they registered to vote that did not validate against other government databases.
The letters encourage these voters to update their voter records by providing their driver’s license or social security numbers or by ensuring the name on their voter registration matches other official government records. Voters who wish to update their name on their voter registration should contact their county board of elections.
The press release includes this bolded statement:
“This is just another way we are working to have the most accurate voter rolls in North Carolina history,” said Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “This effort does not affect the eligibility of any of these voters to cast ballots in our elections.”
Except 241,000 registered voters receiving those letters won’t know that they are still eligible to vote. The letter itself contains no such reassurance. (And the NCSBE letter went out to over 18,000 voters in my county under the header of the local Board of Elections with neither its prior notice nor approval.)
The letters are already sowing enough confusion among voters that NCSBE needed to post an FAQ about them. The state just wants to be sure you are you, dontcha know?
Count me skeptical
The stated goal of this election “integrity” effort is to clear up “discrepancies” in voters’ files “that did not validate against other government databases” and to “help election officials with future voter roll maintenance, which often relies on database matching.”
The letter explains:
When you included your DL or SSN4 on your voter registration form, that number went through a validation process where the county board attempted to confirm that the number provided, along with your first and last name and date of birth, matched a record in the NCDMV or Social Security Administration databases. Your number did not result in a match, and we are requesting your assistance in resolving the discrepancy.
This mismatch can be caused by differences in how a name is spelled in each record such as adding or omitting hyphens, apostrophes, or spaces, or the use of a prior legal name, such as a maiden name, in one of the records. Your name at the top of this letter shows how it is spelled in our records. The mismatch may also be caused by a date of birth or DL or SSN4 listing a number in the wrong field or transposing numbers in the records.
This letter to previously validated voters does not address which specific discrepancy or discrepancies exist (unless the name of the addressee has changed). It invites voters to resubmit data that the State Board already has in its possession. (Help us out!)
Let me point out that if there is a mismatch between the addressee’s driver’s license number in the voter database and the DMV’s, guess which number is the governing one? Correcting that should require no voter input. And if the glitch is on the DMV end, how does the voter’s input correct that? Yet the NCSBE is asking voters (some with failing eyesight) to squint through the security features on their licenses to read their DMV ID numbers and transcribe them accurately onto a form (or a website). Someone at the state end must then accurately input form data into a computer. That’s not a recipe for correcting errors but for introducing new ones!
The same is true of validating the addressee’s DOB or SSN4 in the voter database against what is in the Social Security database. Guess which one governs? Asking the voter to resupply them is not an effort to correct discrepancies.
By the way, “FRAUDULENTLY OR FALSELY COMPLETING THIS FORM IS A CLASS I FELONY UNDER CHAPTER 163 OF THE NC GENERAL STATUTES.” In this political environment, asking validated registrants to reconfirm data the state has already (in some cases relied on for years or decades — they’re just discovering discrepancies now?) is akin to laying a perjury trap.
It’s a win-win for Republican-controlled states that have not yet surrendered their voter files to the DOJ. Voters who resubmit the requested data facilitate making it easier for Donald Trump’s DOJ to “instruct the states to remove specific voters.” Fail to comply with the request (or do so resulting in more transcription errors) and the alleged discrepancies form the basis for another round of vote challenges after Republicans lose in November.
That’s how I read it.
Expect a round of vote-suppressing fearmongering ahead of November about “unvalidated” voters on the rolls risking arrest for voter fraud if they show up and vote. Because that’s how the GOP rolls.