DOJ Sues NCSBE For Registering Voters Without Proper ID

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) over its failure to maintain an accurate voter list and require that those registering to vote provide proper identification.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, states that the NCSBE is in violation of the Help America Vote Act, a federal law that established minimum election administration standards, including a general requirement that those registering to vote must provide either a driver’s license or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

After failing to obtain the proper identification, “voters were then added to the State’s voter registration roll without the required information, and many of these voters remain on the registration rolls without it,” a Justice Department press release states.

“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon said. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”

The lawsuit is similar to one initiated by state and national Republican parties in 2024, where about 225,000 voter registrations were challenged for not providing the proper information. The current lawsuit references an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on March 25 titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”

The purpose of the order is to “ensure that elections are being held in compliance with federal laws that guard against illegal voting, unlawful discrimination, and other forms of fraud, error, or suspicion,” the filing states. “The cornerstone of public trust in government lies in free and fair elections. The core of the compact between a state and its citizens rests in ensuring that only eligible citizens can vote in elections.”

Sam Hayes, the NCSBE’s new executive director, acknowledged that the board had failed to collect the proper information in a statement, saying, “We are still reviewing the complaint, but the failure to collect the information required by HAVA has been well documented. Rest assured that I am committed to bringing North Carolina into compliance with federal law.”

At issue in the Justice Department’s filing, as well as the Republican Party filings and similar challenges spearheaded by Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin, is the fact that the NCSBE use a confused registration document that did not signify that the accepted forms of identification were required to register, making some in the state believe it was optional.

Although the concerns were known since at least late 2023, the then-Democrat-run NCSBE decided to do nothing about it and continue operating with hundreds of thousands of incomplete voter registrations. Despite multiple lawsuits, no court forced the NCSBE to resolve its error, despite many judges acknowledging the failure.

Those decisions ultimately ended in Griffin losing his bid for state Supreme Court, with judges requiring that the votes count.

Hayes, nominated by a Republican, took over as executive director after former director Karen Brinson Bell, a Democrat, was ousted earlier this year when the board declined to renew her nomination to the position.

Before this year, the NCSBE was Democrat-run, as the majority of board members were chosen by the governor. Upon the election victory of now-Gov. Josh Stein, D-N.C., the state legislature stripped the governor of the power to appoint the board, giving it instead to the state auditor, Republican Dave Boliek.

Boliek appointed a Republican majority to the board, causing a shakeup in operation and ostensibly a refocused effort on election integrity, which had been totally undermined under Democrat control, as The Federalist reported on numerous occasions. Stein is currently challenging the law that stripped him of appointment power for the NCSBE, but the state Supreme Court issued an order on Friday allowing Boliek to maintain the power as the lawsuit proceeds through the judicial system.