- The US Justice Department has filed a federal lawsuit against North Carolina and the State Board of Elections over alleged inaccuracies in the state's voter list.
- The lawsuit specifically targets a voter registration form that did not require prospective voters to provide a driver's license number or last four digits of a Social Security number.
- State and national Republican Party groups raised the same issue in an August 2024 lawsuit. Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin referenced the same issue during his six-month legal battle over the 2024 election.
The US Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the state of North Carolina and the State Board of Elections. The suit accuses the elections board of failing to maintain an accurate voter list in violation of the federal Help America Vote Act.
The suit specifically references the elections board’s use of a voter registration form that did not require prospective voters to provide a driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number. The same issue prompted a 2024 lawsuit from state and national Republican Party groups and factored into the six-month legal dispute over a state Supreme Court election.
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a news release. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”
“I was only recently notified of this action by the United States Department of Justice,” State Board of Elections executive director Sam Hayes said in a prepared statement. “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.”
The suit referenced President Donald Trump’s March 25 executive order on “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The order aimed “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,” according to the lawsuit.
“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,” the complaint continued.
“Defendants have failed to maintain accurate lists in North Carolina’s computerized statewide voter registration in violation of Section 303(a)(5) of HAVA and the sacred trust that the people of the State of North Carolina have put in them to ensure the fairness and integrity of elections for Federal office in the state, necessitating this litigation,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit names the state, the elections board, all five individual members, and Hayes. Hayes took office on May 15, eight days after a newly constituted State Board of Elections ousted former director Karen Brinson Bell.
With new Republican members Francis De Luca and Robert Rucho, the board also flipped from a 3-2 Democratic majority to a 3-2 Republican majority. State Auditor Dave Boliek, also a Republican, made the appointments under authority granted to him in 2024’s Senate Bill 382.
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, is challenging the law shifting elections appointments from his office to the auditor. The state Supreme Court issued an order Friday allowing Boliek to maintain his appointment power while the case proceeds through the state Court of Appeals.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party filed suit in August 2024 challenging the former Democrat-majority elections board’s handling of the voter registrations discussed in the new federal suit.
The GOP complaint challenged 225,000 voter registrations linked to the disputed form. Republican groups asked for the affected voters to be dropped from the voting rolls or required to cast a provisional ballot in the 2024 general election.
Courts refused to force the elections board to take that step.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin later raised the same issue in his ballot challenges after the election. Trailing Democrat Allison Riggs by 734 votes, Griffin challenged more than 65,000 votes cast in the contest. More than 60,000 of those ballots involved voters whose registration records appeared to lack the required HAVA information.
The state Supreme Court ultimately decided that those votes would count in the final election tally. Griffin conceded the election after a federal judge declined to support a “cure” process that would have affected ballots Griffin challenged for other reasons.
The new lawsuit is assigned to US District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, appointed to the bench in 2003 by President George W. Bush.