Over 200,000 North Carolina Voter IDs Missing

North Carolina voter data lists more than 224,000 people with registration dates after January 2004 whose records are “missing” both the last four digits of their Social Security number (SSN) and a driver’s license identification number, according to public records obtained by The Federalist.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) required states to verify certain “information of newly registered voters for Federal elections,” according to the Social Security Administration. “Each State must establish a computerized State-wide voter registration list and verify new voter information with the State’s Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).” These requirements went into effect on Jan. 1, 2004.

States must verify the would-be voter’s driver’s license number against the MVA database, but if an individual lacks a driver’s license then states must use the last four digits of his SSN, name, and date of birth. Notably, verifying a registrant’s SSN or driver’s license does not necessarily confirm his citizenship, since foreign nationals can obtain either.

The system is meant to ensure prospective voters are eligible. Yet in North Carolina, hundreds of thousands of registrations made it into the system without this verifying information, according to allegations from election integrity activists.

“We now have hundreds of thousands of ineligible, duplicate, deceased and non-citizen registrants bloating our voter lists — the breeding ground for election fraud,” North Carolina Election Integrity Team President Jim Womack said in a statement to The Federalist.

Data obtained via public records request in April by Carol Snow, who is affiliated with the North Carolina Audit Force group, and reviewed by The Federalist appears to show that since January 2024, more than 4,500 additional voters were added to the rolls despite their records indicating no SSN or driver’s license identification number.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections released the records, which are formatted as a massive spreadsheet, to Snow on April 15. The Federalist filtered the data to count the number of active, inactive, and temporary (military and overseas) voters who are listed by the state as both “missing SSN” and “missing driver’s license [number].”

Filtering the data by county, the data indicates that since January, Mecklenburg County saw 726 registrants who fit that description, Durham saw 518, Guilford County saw 406, Onslow County saw 289, and Robeson saw 305. Filtering the statewide data for voters with registration dates in the past year who are “missing” both identification numbers produces more than 22,000 records.

Notably, the state’s old voter registration form did not make it clear to applicants that their driver’s license identification number or the last four digits of their SSN were required. The old form highlighted “required” fields, such as name, address, and date of birth, in red. However, the boxes for driver’s license number or SSN were not highlighted.

“The form fails to require registrants to provide either of these two federally mandated information requirements,” Womack told The Federalist.

In November 2023, after Snow filed a complaint, the board of elections acknowledged that the old form’s lack of clear instructions requiring such ID numbers could result in HAVA violations. The board unanimously agreed to update the voter registration application to “ensure that it is clear that applicants must provide either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when they register to vote,” NCSBE Public Information Director Patrick Gannon told The Federalist.

The new form, which entered circulation earlier this year, does clarify that such identifying information is required. However, the board “did not approve the request that county boards refuse to accept any voter registration forms currently in circulation.”

“When forms are submitted by mail or in person to local election boards, they are accepted without challenge,” Womack alleged.

Gannon told The Federalist that if a new registrant uses the old form, counties “must ensure that the applicant has completed the portion of Section 3 of the form by providing an identification number or by checking the box affirmatively stating they do not have such a number.” If a new registrant leaves that part of the form blank, “then the record must be saved to the Incomplete Queue and the voter must be sent a new registration form and an incomplete letter informing them that the application cannot be processed until that information is provided.”

The new form is linked in English on the North Carolina Board of Elections website. However, users looking for the Spanish voter registration application are still directed to an old-style form. Womack said what is especially concerning is “the inability to enforce HAVA-required capture of driver license or SSN information on new registrants.”

Womack told The Federalist the state has struggled to “maintain accurate voter lists or to adequately screen new applicants for those lists” due to what he describes as “overly restrictive legal interpretations” of HAVA and the National Voter Registration Act.

When the board considered Snow’s complaint about the registration form in November, it also rejected a “requested remedy to contact all existing registered voters whose electronic records do not show a driver’s license number [or] last four digits of a Social Security number,” claiming “that remedy, when applied to an existing registered voter … is not specifically authorized in HAVA.” Womack said election administrations are “handcuffed … from maintaining clean voter rolls.”

The board’s order claimed that anyone who registered to vote without providing either his SSN or driver’s license number would not have been permitted to vote “without proving their identity consistent with HAVA.”

Gannon acknowledged to The Federalist that the board has no “reason to believe” that the 224,000 figure and other numbers represented by the data are “inaccurate.” He said, however, the number would encompass not only voters who did not provide an identifying number but also those whose identifying information “does not validate through the database check with DMV and SSA.”

“Validation failure does not necessarily mean the person provided an invalid number,” he said, claiming things like “name change or variation” or even “inexplicable” system error could affect the database’s ability to accurately match voters who otherwise present a valid SSN or driver’s license number. Gannon also added that federal law “requires election officials to process a voter registration form from a voter who says they do not possess an SSN or DL number. These voters will lack an SSN or DL number in their record entirely, but they must also confirm their identity before voting pursuant to” state law.

“It is incorrect to say all these records ‘lack’ SSN or DL, as if it were not provided and the voter did not verify their identity through a lawful means,” Gannon told The Federalist.

When asked how many voters fall into each category he mentioned — validation failure due to system error, validation failure because of name changes or variations, and voters who lack SSN or DL but eventually confirm their identity — Gannon said he didn’t have data for the first two. He said the board “may” have a way to figure out the number of voters who fall into the third category but that it would “take time” because the data team is “overloaded.”

Earlier this month, the NCSBE dismissed a complaint from Snow in which she claimed to have found instances of potential duplicate voters on the voter rolls, according to WRAL. Board staff argued Snow’s claims were false “apparently due to mistakes or to Snow lacking access to certain data the state has but the public doesn’t — such as voters’ Social Security numbers — to keep tabs on voters with similar names” such as fathers and sons. Snow countered that “a father and son are not born in the same year, which the registration records show.”

The Federalist also reached out to the Social Security Administration for more information but did not receive a response.