No, it’s not a scam. The North Carolina State Board of Elections sent letters to 241,000 voters in early February as part of a new effort to improve voter roll accuracy. The letters requested certain voters’ birthdays, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
Providing this information is not a requirement to vote — in contrast to another recent effort, the Registration Repair Project.
Nonetheless, the letters confused a number of voters. Election directors in several counties said a significant number of voters called or visited to ask whether the letter was legitimate and whether they would still be eligible to vote if they didn’t provide information.
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The letters went to voters who either did not provide identification numbers when they registered to vote because they registered before 2004, when the Help America Vote Act began requiring that information, or voters whose identification numbers did not match up with other government databases.
Mismatches can happen for various reasons. Voters’ names may be spelled differently across government databases due to differences in dealing with hyphens, apostrophes or spaces, or legal name changes, particularly involving married women. Election workers may have accidentally transposed a name or a number incorrectly.
The State Board wants as many voters as possible to update their records to make election administration run more smoothly.
“It’s easier for us to find the voter records and to make sure that they’re updated and that the names and the addresses and all that information is accurate,” said State Board spokesperson Jason Tyson. “It helps us with database matching.”
County boards respond after state letters
Brunswick County Elections Director Sara LaVere knew the letters were going out, but forgot amid the busy early voting schedule.
Initially, it was a bit more than the staff was ready for, but they quickly adjusted.
“This is not the first letter to go out, but this is the first time we’ve had such a response and so many calls and people coming into the office, not understanding and wanting to make sure it’s legitimate and not a scam,” she said.
Guilford County Deputy Elections Director Chris Duffey said they’ve had about 200 people reach out since the letters were sent out the first week of February. Most are older voters, who registered before 2004, when the Help America Vote Act added new registration requirements. Now, State Board Executive Director Sam Hayes wants to gather their identification numbers too, though.
“They’re getting the letter and they’re just confused, not understanding that they never had to provide it,” Duffey said. “They’ve been voting for a lot of years.”
Having the additional information will help the county board identify duplicate voter registrations, he added. The system checks against date of birth, first and last name when someone registers to vote, but that is sometimes not enough information to know if two voters are the same.
With a unique ID like a driver’s license number, the system would be able to immediately flag when the same voter attempts to make a second registration.
It may also help the State Board use the SAVE system, which allows the state to check broad swaths of the voter roll against federal government databases to seek out noncitizen voters.
Alexander County Elections Director Cheryl Feimster and Forsyth County Elections Director Tim Tsuji said the letters haven’t caused much of a disturbance.
“We just had a lot come in with the letters,” Feimster said. “But, we’re able to handle it.”
Haywood County Elections Director Robert Inman said it has increased their workload.
“We did not expect to have this number of inquiries,” he said. “It’s not just the people getting letters; it’s the general public that has heard this or heard that, and those become questions for us as well. But we just do our due diligence the way we always do.”
For its part, the State Board has tried to reduce confusion by alerting counties and publishing a FAQ about the letters.
While the letters went out around the early voting period, there was no special reason for that other than a desire to improve voter roll accuracy as soon as possible, Tyson said. The board will send out another round of letters in August about unvalidated identification numbers.
In the meantime, the Registration Repair Project continues. Voters who registered after HAVA became law and did not provide identification numbers have been sent several letters asking to update their records. If they have not, and show up at the polls, they will have to vote a provisional ballot and provide the identification numbers before canvass.
“Hopefully, in total, these efforts combined help with more accurate voter rolls,” Tyson said.
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