Tens of thousands of deceased people remain on North Carolina’s voter rolls, state election officials said Monday, adding that they are still investigating the status of each individual before canceling registrations.
The registrations were found as part of a new program intended to vet state voter eligibility data with federal government databases. After state data was cross-referenced with federal databases, officials found about 34,000 active registrations of people who the federal government had identified as deceased, state officials said.
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The state submitted about 7.4 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database as part of an effort to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state’s voter registration list.
There was no immediate evidence of wrongful voting under any of those registrations. However, leaving deceased voters on the rolls could leave the state vulnerable to voter fraud, officials said. They added that list maintenance is necessary to ensure compliance with state and federal law, and that the identification of deceased people on the rolls underscores the need for regular updates and interagency coordination.
Election officials are expected to now work with county officials to verify the status of the flagged registrations. Voters who are confirmed deceased would be removed from the state’s rolls.
When eligible voters die in North Carolina, the state Department of Health and Human Services typically sends a notice to state elections officials, who in turn remove those who were registered to vote in the state from voter rolls.
But in some cases — such as when a voter moves away from North Carolina and dies in another state — North Carolina might not be notified of the death by the other state, leaving a registration active after the voter has died.
“While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a statement. “The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this.”
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in North Carolina. Nevertheless, Republican members of the State Board of Elections have pursued efforts to increase checks on voter eligibility. The effort to cross-reference state data with federal data is among those efforts, focused primarily on preventing voter fraud by noncitizens. Election officials said Monday that the process is also expected to catch anomalies such as duplicate registrations, name mismatches and deceased voters.
Election officials say a small number of noncitizens have appeared on voter rolls, mostly due to misunderstanding or administrative error. An audit following the 2016 election identified 41 cases involving ineligible noncitizens — a sliver of a percent of the nearly 4.8 million ballots cast.
Democratic members of the state board have criticized the federal vetting process, saying that limited state data — such as the use of partial social security numbers — could lead to errors and inadvertently disenfranchise voters.
Officials say maintaining accurate rolls ensures that only eligible votes are counted, especially in close elections where small margins can determine outcomes. Board officials say the federal review is intended to reduce ineligible registrations and improve confidence in voter records while providing a structured process for verification and appeals.
“Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible,” Hayes said in his statement on Monday. “Now, we must roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work ... of verifying that every person registered to vote in North Carolina is eligible.”
The new procedure comes amid a national push by Republicans to ensure noncitizens don’t participate in federal elections, despite a lack of evidence suggesting widespread voter fraud. President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting, in part to ensure noncitizens don’t cast ballots. The order is being challenged in federal court by Democratic leaders.
Trump has repeated disproven allegations of election fraud, heightening skepticism over the electoral process. Public polling shows that large numbers of voters — especially Republican voters — express mistrust in the validity and security of American elections, especially in years when their preferred candidates don’t win.