The North Carolina State Board of Elections has approved a new process to verify the citizenship status of all registered voters in the state – a move that officials say is aimed at improving the accuracy of voter rolls while ensuring that eligible voters are not wrongly removed.

At a recent meeting, the board voted to begin checking voter information against a federal database maintained by US Citizenship and Immigration Services known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE system.

Under the plan, voters’ names, dates of birth and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers will be submitted through the database to flag potential noncitizens. The State Board has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with federal officials to use the SAVE system, formalizing how that data-sharing process will work.

“This is another way that we will continue to improve the accuracy of our voter rolls and make sure only eligible voters can cast ballots in this state,” State Board Executive Director Sam Hayes said in a statement released by the board pertaining to the new verification process. “As noncitizens are removed from the voter list, necessary precautions will be taken to ensure that no eligible voters are affected.”

The effort comes with a large number of safeguards, according to the board, and the process laid out by the newly approved rules is more involved than simply matching names against a database.

If a voter is flagged by the SAVE system as a potential noncitizen, elections officials will take additional steps before any removal is considered.

First, officials will work with the SAVE system to determine whether other records available through the federal database indicate that the person is, in fact, a US citizen.

Then, state and local records will be reviewed to see whether the voter has ever provided proof of citizenship to a government agency.

If no such documentation can be found, the voter will be notified and given an opportunity to respond, correct the information or provide proof of citizenship.

Under the rules approved by the board, voters must be given notice and an opportunity to be heard before they can be removed from the rolls. That includes the ability to submit documentation verifying their citizenship status.

The rules aren’t in effect yet. They must still go before the Rules Review Commission for final approval before they can be implemented statewide.

State officials emphasized that the effort isn’t being driven by evidence of widespread fraud.

Election officials say they don’t have evidence suggesting that noncitizen registration or voting is a widespread problem in North Carolina. However, they also note that even a small number of ineligible voters can become an issue in a state where elections are often decided by narrow margins.  Look at the Sam Page versus Phil Berger election if you want a local example of an important outcome determined by a handful of votes..

The board points to documented cases as justification for tightening verification procedures.

A State Board audit conducted after the 2016 general election found that 41 noncitizens with legal status cast ballots in that election. That election saw nearly 4.8 million votes cast statewide, meaning the number of identified cases represented a very small fraction of the total.

According to that audit, many of those cases weren’t intentional violations of the law.

Interviews and evidence gathered during the audit indicated that some noncitizens were misinformed about eligibility requirements during voter registration drives. In at least one documented instance, a local precinct official provided incorrect information.

In another case cited in the audit, a woman in her 70s had lived in the United States for more than 50 years and believed she was a citizen because she’d been married to a US citizen.

Those examples, officials say, highlight that errors in the voter rolls can occur for reasons other than deliberate misconduct.

More recently, the state board noted that a Canadian citizen pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of making false claims of US citizenship on North Carolina voter registration applications in 2022 and 2024 in order to vote in elections.

Under both state and federal law, registering or voting as a non-U.S. citizen is a felony.

Under Article VI, Section 1 of the North Carolina Constitution, only US citizens are eligible to vote in state elections. State officials say that maintaining accurate voter rolls is essential to ensuring the requirement is upheld.

The State Board also notes that ineligible ballots can effectively cancel out votes cast by eligible voters, which, again, become particularly important in close races.

North Carolina has seen a number of closely contested elections in recent years, where outcomes have been decided by relatively small margins, adding to the emphasis on the need for maintaining accurate voter lists.

At the same time, the proposal is already drawing concern from voting rights advocates.  They warn that the use of federal databases like SAVE could lead to eligible voters being incorrectly flagged.

Critics of similar efforts in other states have argued that government databases aren’t always up to date or perfectly accurate, particularly for naturalized citizens – and that matching errors can occur when records are incomplete or inconsistent.

Those concerns center on the possibility that eligible voters could be wrongly identified as noncitizens and forced to go through a potentially burdensome process to prove their citizenship in order to remain on the rolls.

Critics have also raised broader concerns that aggressive voter roll maintenance efforts, even when well-intentioned, can sometimes discourage participation or create confusion among voters.

State officials, however, argue that the multi-step review process and required notification procedures are exactly designed to prevent that from happening and to ensure that no eligible voter is removed without due process.

In addition to identifying and removing ineligible voters, the new verification effort is expected to generate more data about how noncitizens end up on voter rolls in the first place.

State election officials say that information could help inform future policy decisions and public discussion about administration of elections in North Carolina.

The State Board has also launched a new webpage providing additional information about voter list maintenance efforts, including a question-and-answer section explaining how the SAVE database will be used in the verification process.

The broader goal, according to election officials, is to strike a balance — ensuring that only eligible voters participate in elections while also protecting the rights of those who are legally entitled to vote.

“This is another way that we will continue to improve the accuracy of our voter rolls,” Hayes said, “and make sure only eligible voters can cast ballots in this state.”

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