The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles is still reviewing whether it can legally share drivers’ full Social Security numbers with state election officials who have requested it as part of a voter-verification effort.
The state Board of Elections requested the numbers from the DMV in September and then, after not receiving them, ramped up the pressure on the agency this week. Sam Hayes, the board’s executive director, told DMV leaders in a letter Thursday that the numbers are “essential for precise matching against other government databases and for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of our voter lists” ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Other WRAL Top Stories
North Carolinians can register to vote directly through the elections board, but most use a a process that lets them register — or update their registration — at the DMV when applying for a new or updated driver’s license.
The elections board already has the last four digits of many voters’ Social Security numbers. But it wants the full 10-digit numbers that the DMV has. That comes as elections board staff have warned that the effort to investigate immigrant voting could wind up with wrongful allegations against legitimate voters, since it’s feasible that multiple different people could share the same names, birthdates and other identifying information, including the last four digits of a Social Security number.
There are strict rules under state law for agencies that handle people’s Social Security numbers or other personal identifying information. When the state elections board voted last month to begin this push, the board’s Democratic members voted no — citing, in part, concerns that the elections board didn’t have the ability to safeguard identifying data for the state’s 7.6 million registered voters, or the processes in place to properly warn them if bad actors have obtained their information.
The DMV is now trying to determine whether the law allows the agency to share people’s full Social Security numbers, DMV spokesman Marty Homan told WRAL.
“We’re aware of the letter and will respond in the near term,” Homan said in a statement, adding: “We take our role in the voter registration process seriously and will continue to assist the State Board of Elections in fulfilling its mission to administer fair and accurate elections in North Carolina.”
The elections board’s latest push comes less than a month after it agreed to partner with the Department of Homeland Security in verifying voters’ citizenship status. Hayes noted in his letter that federal prosecutors in western North Carolina recently found that the DMV inadvertently processed a few voter registrations for noncitizens.
Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in North Carolina. And while there have been some allegations of noncitizens casting ballots in North Carolina, there’s no evidence that noncitizens have voted in the state on a wide scale.
Elections have long been closely monitored, audited and scrutinized for accuracy — efforts that have drawn more attention in recent years, despite not yielding evidence of widespread fraud.
Nevertheless, public polling continues to show 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. Similar trends have been identified nationally, as well as specifically in North Carolina by a WRAL News Poll last year.