The Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party filed a joint lawsuit accusing the state’s Board of Elections of allowing hundreds of thousands of people to register to vote without providing the identification required by law.
According to the lawsuit, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) "is opening the door for non-citizens to vote" by not requiring proof of identity for about 225,000 voters in the form of a driver’s license or the last four digits of a Social Security number, violating the 2002 Help America Vote Act.
"The NCSBE has once again failed in its mandate to keep non-citizens off the voter rolls, fueling distrust and jeopardizing our elections," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. "We are committed to the basic principle – and commonsense law – that only Americans decide American elections. Deliberately failing to follow the law, right before our country’s most important election, is inexcusable. We will fight every day to ensure that NCSBE follows the law, cleans the voter rolls, and protects the vote for North Carolinians."
The Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative Manager Hans von Spakovsky said that to have a fair and honest election, states should be complying with HAVA’s requirements.
Spokovsky said he agreed with the goal of the lawsuit, and North Carolina should invalidate the voters with improper registration.
“There’s no reason to fight this lawsuit,” he said. “They ought to just agree to take whatever steps are necessary to remedy this, and that would simply mean them taking the over 200,000 people who registered without them verifying the registrations and doing that” (The Daily Tar Heel)
"This State Board continually has problems ensuring voter rolls only have verified citizens," NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons said. "This lawsuit will remedy their ongoing refusal to collect the required information from those who want to take part in North Carolina elections. Accountability and fidelity to following the rule of law is long overdue for the most partisan Elections Board in state history."
The Democratic National Committee is pushing back, however, and filed a motion to intervene on Friday, The Carolina Journal reports.
“They seek to disenfranchise 225,000 North Carolinians not because those voters did anything wrong, but because — according to them — small portions of North Carolina’s approved voter registration form were improperly color-coded,” Democratic attorneys wrote. “Their claims are unsupported by state or federal law, and their request to disenfranchise voters on the eve of an election is expressly prohibited by the National Voter Registration Act.”