The North Carolina State Election Board has admitted it allowed thousands of people to register to vote without providing federally required identifying information—and has now agreed to correct the problem after being sued by the Republican National Committee. Funny how “nothing to see here” turns into “we’ll fix it” once lawyers show up.
The agreement comes nearly two years after The Federalist first reported on the questionable registrations. Under the Help America Vote Act, prospective voters must provide either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. If they have neither, they must check a box affirming that fact. Yet in North Carolina, as many as 195,000 voters were found on the rolls without any of this required information on file.
Since 2004, federal law has required states to collect this data to verify voter eligibility. States are supposed to cross-check driver’s license numbers with motor vehicle databases, or use Social Security digits, name, and date of birth if no license exists. While this system is not perfect, it is one of the few congressionally mandated safeguards for election integrity—something critics seem allergic to.
According to earlier reporting, the state’s old voter registration form helped create the mess. Required fields like name and address were clearly marked in red, but the sections for driver’s license or Social Security numbers were not labeled as mandatory. Election integrity activists warned that as many as 225,000 registrations were missing required information, prompting the state to update its form in 2024. Better late than never, right?
But the voter rolls themselves were not immediately fixed. As Breccan Thies reported, the board had known about the issue since at least 2023 and declined to act before the 2024 election—when it was Democrat-run. Apparently, fixing illegal registrations was just too inconvenient at the time.
The RNC sued the board in 2024, while the Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit challenging the incomplete registrations. Under the agreement, the board will no longer accept forms that lack a driver’s license number, Social Security digits, or the required checkbox. It must also go back and retrieve that information from voters who failed to provide it.
Voters who do not supply the missing information by the deadline for curing their ballots will not have their ballots counted in local and statewide elections, though they may still vote in federal contests. In other words, the law will finally be treated like the law.
“For too long, North Carolina’s State Board of Elections failed to meet basic safeguards that protect our elections,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said. He called the agreement a major win for election integrity and a clear rebuke to Democrats who tried to weaken basic protections.
Once again, common sense is making a comeback: follow the law, verify the voter, and protect the ballot. It’s a simple idea, but one worth celebrating—and a strong step toward restoring confidence in the system.
