Advocates for fair elections see major flaws in NC’s latest elections bill | Opinion
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This NC elections bill is flawed
The writer is former executive director of Democracy North Carolina.
A cruel and needless provision in the omnibus election bill under consideration in the legislature would give vigilante groups ammunition to harass legal immigrants and naturalized citizens. Republican leaders have helped block this dangerous provision from becoming law in previous years; hopefully, they will again.
A section of Senate Bill 747 requires election boards to give anyone detailed information about people who avoid serving on a jury because they told the clerk of court they’re not a citizen. It’s one thing for the State Board of Elections to use the information to carefully match and remove people on the voting rolls who are not citizens. It’s totally different to let self-appointed patriot protectors use court records to aggressively target individuals on social media and at their home or workplace.
A few years ago, an advocacy group misused data from the Wake County jury records to harass alleged non-citizens outside their homes and by phone. It turned out the individuals were citizens! Some were naturalized after being summoned to jury duty; some wrongly checked the “not a citizen” box on the summons form. None of those targeted by Project Veritas had illegally voted.
The SBOE already audits its rolls for non-citizens — and it’s not a simple process because of “the complexities of immigration law and citizenship status,” said Kim Strach in 2017, as the Republican-appointed board director. She cautioned, “Even where data from the Division of Motor Vehicles, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the voter rolls matched exactly, a high proportion of flagged individuals were citizens.”
Bottom line: releasing confidential jury records is the wrong way to improve the integrity of voter rolls. A smarter choice: provide the much-needed money to modernize the state’s aging voter registration computer system for data matching and more. Sadly, the strongest proponents of empowering vigilantes are among the legislators most reluctant to increase board funding for the staff and systems required to administer secure elections.
Bob Hall, Raleigh
Greater risk of election errors
Matt Germer is an R Street Institute think tank fellow. Rachel Orey is associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center.
In preparation for the 2024 election, Sen. Ralph Hise has undertaken a laudable effort to bolster public trust in N.C. elections in Senate Bill 747. Some of it’s notable changes, such as requiring that mail ballots be in-hand by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, have a history of bipartisan support and would expedite unofficial results reporting, a critical component of trust in election results.
Unfortunately, the bill has two major Achilles heels: no additional funding to make its promises of enhanced security a reality and inadequate lead time for election officials to implement the proposed changes.
If adopted, this bill would mandate a slew of new rules and processes for election administrators, requiring time and funding for things like retraining existing staff, purchasing new technology, and updating voter materials. The changes are also set to take effect while state offices are already working hard to implement new voter ID requirements.
This bill requires those who register to vote during early voting to cast provisional ballots, which take longer to process, thus delaying unofficial results reporting. That has been shown to erode trust in elections.
Underfunded elections and a lack of adequate lead time on policy changes are not new or unique. In fact, the lack of financial support from the state has contributed to the nearly 50% turnover of county election directors since 2019, leaving the high-turnout 2024 presidential election and implementation of SB 747 in the hands of brand-new election officials.
When resources are spread thin, small glitches and mistakes become more likely and can compound into major problems. If legislators don’t allocate additional funding, the very changes meant to improve election security in SB 747 will exacerbate existing challenges and increase the risk of errors.
Matt Germer, Charlotte
Rachel Orey, Washington
