The North Carolina State Board of Elections says it’s identified roughly 34,000 deceased individuals on the state’s voter rolls after running a large-scale comparison with a federal database.
The discovery came after the State Board submitted 7,397,734 voter records on April 17, 2026, to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system as part of an effort to improve the accuracy of North Carolina’s voter registration list.
State officials say that the primary purpose of the comparison was to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and ensure that only eligible individuals are on the rolls. However, they noted that the process is also turning up other discrepancies, including duplicate records, mismatched information and, in this case, individuals who are deceased.
“While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” said State Board Executive Director Sam Hayes.
“The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible,” he added.
Hayes also said the agency now faces the task of verifying the findings and making appropriate updates.
Election officials emphasized that maintaining voter rolls is a routine function required under state and federal law. They also noted that the presence of dead people on the rolls doesn’t necessarily mean that any illegal votes were cast in their names, but it does highlight the need for regular updates and coordination among agencies.
The State Board says it will follow established procedures to confirm the records and will work with county boards of elections to remove deceased individuals where appropriate. That process includes additional cross-checks with other state and federal databases, as well as providing due process before any voter is removed.
The SAVE database comparison relies on voters’ names, dates of birth and the last four digits of Social Security numbers, which are submitted to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That agency then cross-checks the information with the Social Security Administration.
For deaths that occur within North Carolina, the State Board already receives weekly updates from the NC Department of Health and Human Services, with removals handled at the county level.
Officials say that the new federal comparison will help identify people who may have registered in North Carolina but later moved to another state and died there.
State election officials say this effort is part of an ongoing push to ensure that North Carolina’s voter rolls are as accurate and up to date as possible
Given 100,000 people die per year in NC, doesnt sound like a crazy number of regisrered voters who died in the last year or so.
I can’t help but wonder how many of those dead people voted after they died. Especially with the influx of illegals coming into this country and using dead people’s social security numbers.
So far they haven’t found any that have voted. That help?
The idea that an undocumented immigrant would risk exposing themselves in order for vote for a system that doesn’t want them here is an absurd assumption.
Good point, but don’t forget following a review America was still paying Social Security to individuals that were140 years old. After I die, please don’t let me vote for a Democrat!
Have these people been found voting after they died or are they just dead? (just curious)
In the release from the NC board there was no mention of any of these deceased people voting.
The headline and purpose of this making news is to imply voter fraud which is a blatant lie. Dead people don’t vote. Voter fraud is so limited that it has never changed the outcome of an election in N.C. Fox guarding the henhouse so when the Republicans get shellacked in November they can cry fraud. It’s a sad time for N.C. politics.
There is no attempt to imply voter fraud. The article is simply stating the facts. If you look at actual instances of voter fraud in NC, the number is extremely low.
This is just what has been found because someone was forced to look, likely because of a push by Judicial Watch, which has been doing this in every other state. Imagine if the state REALLY looked through the voter rolls thoroughly not just for the dead, but also those who have moved away and noncitizens. This is the basis for fraud, which has occurred in this state all too frequently. Yet. the Democrats would have voters believe there are no such issues in the state. Just a cursory inspection has found 34k issues. How many more are there?
There is no evidence of fraud. Conservatives have been looking long and hard and yet found nothing.
Counties all clear rolls through regular on-going maintenance as required by law. Given that 100,000 people die a year in NC and that purges involve addressing aa range of legal justifications for removing voters from registration rolls, the processes are never 100% perfect given data quality issues with both rolls and data sources used to purge rolls. Hence the occasional State level audits and purges.
Just the process at work. Not complicated.
I would be curious to know some detail. Were all 34k recently deceased and there is a time lag in updating or were there other reasons they hadn’t been deleted. And were there any cases of a “dead” person voting? I am sure there could be some other categories. There certainly is one flaw in that the only deaths reported are those in NC and from social security. And, those who move out of state are supposed to report that to remove from the roles. I doubt there are many of those who would still try to vote, unless they carry an old ID or fake ID. Hopefully we’ll as least see some improvement on this.
With computers being what they are, how come the Elections Board hasn’t told us how many of those dead voters voted in the last couple of elections? I’m sure it wouldn’t take a few clicks of a computer mouse to extract that data.
Ya don’t say? How clean is Guilford County?
saw two people come into polling place last primary. sunglasses black hats the whole outfit walking in stride very suspicious. confronted them both and they looked me dead in the eye and said “you shall speak none of this” walked out with a hispanic looking young man who had been waiting for them by the door…very coordinated and the like. if that aint voter fraud i dont know what is
I know dead people who are injenuis.
There are 2.175 million registered democratic voters in NC. There are 2.196 million registered republicans. There are 2.871 million registered independents in NC. So I would argue (assuming the deaths are equally distributed among all parties) that democrats get the short straw.
Careful streb, they already think you and I are the same person……bringing data to a discussion on makes their will put them over the edge with their conspiracy theories.
hes about as bad at drawing conclusions from data as you are too!
Ad Hominem
this ignores the fact that independents vote in elections
every independent voter is evidence that democrats are parasites & republicans r neo-fascists ? every non voter is evidence that people tolerate the status quo or r lazy ?
At least in NC those deceased registrants can be removed from the voter rolls. I understand in Minnesota the state legislature just voted decedent voters could not be removed from current rolls.
Some want to diminish the 34,000 error as insignificant in the ‘big Scheme’ of things. Yet, in every election there are tight margins in some races, that just five percent of that total could easily change an outcome. Why make a pretense that defective voter roles or ID laws don’t matter? Voting isn’t supposed to be like a Ouija board, numbers matter.
‘dead people on voter roles’ & ‘flies on biscuits’