Editorial: Deniers are silent as election workers toil to assure honest vote

On Jan. 8, 2023 North Carolina listed 7,413,909 voters on registration rolls.

Just eight weeks later, there are 7,219,097 voters listed on voter registration rolls.

That’s as if every voter in Brunswick and Pender counties suddenly disappeared.

Why aren’t the election deniers up in arms? Why aren’t our legislative leaders, who have been quick with criticism of state election administrators in their efforts to impose discriminatory voter ID laws, offering up outrage? (Again, just a reminder, we FAVOR voter ID – but in ways that DO NOT discriminate or prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to cast ballots. It can be done.)

Why hasn’t there been a peep from the partisan skeptics and radical-fringe deniers when nearly 200,000 names -- in fewer than 60 days -- were erased?

It commands elections officials in North Carolina, at least twice a year, to make “a diligent effort … to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” and update the information on other eligible voters.

Local voter lists are regularly updated to remove the names of those who have died, via notifications regularly provided by the state Department of Health and Human Services. Voters who are incarcerated on felony charges are also removed through records provided by the state Department of Public Safety and U.S. attorneys’ offices.

In January and July of each year, the State Board of Elections sends each of the state’s 100 county elections boards a list of registered voters who have indicated to the Postal Service that they have changed their address. These local boards are required to send postcards to each of these voters at the new address to confirm their current address and if there needs to be a change of address for voting purposes.

In an orderly and proscribed manner, local elections officials go through their voter rolls.

Voters who are listed as “inactive” for casting ballots in at least eight years or failing to respond to official correspondence from election officials concerning confirmation of their residence are removed from the rolls. Since the first of this year more than 264,000 inactive voters have been deleted from voter lists.

They look for the names of voters who they haven’t had any contact for the previous two statewide general elections – since October 2019 – and haven’t voted during that time. Those voters are sent a letter seeking confirmation of their address. The voter is required to return confirmation within 30 days. For those voters who don’t confirm their address, they are listed as “inactive.” Should they seek to vote, they will be required to not just confirm their identity but also to prove their address.

This is not glamorous. There’s no shaming or gotcha. There are no partisan advantages.

It is the day-to-day hard work of state and local election workers. Their toil provides the more than 7.2 million registered voters and the thousands of future eligible citizens who will register to vote, with the assurance they will be able to cast ballots, those ballots will be honestly counted and the outcome of elections will be fair and true.

We say thanks – even amid the silence from our legislative leaders.