RALEIGH, N.C. — Voting rights organization Democracy North Carolina issued the following statement in response to the N.C. State Board of Elections (NCSBE) release of post-election audits from the 2016 general election. The NCSBE audit entitled Post-Election Audit Report: General Election 2016 includes the agency’s investigations of ineligible votes.
Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina issued the following statement:
“We are pleased that the N.C. State Board of Elections is using careful research to protect the security of our voting system while also protecting each citizen’s right to vote.
We note that over 85% of the 508 cases of ineligible voters involve registered citizens who are on probation – but in 20 other states, those votes would count because people on probation do have the right to vote in those states.
This example highlights the importance of looking closer at the stories behind the numbers in the Board’s audit. The stories will show that most of the cases involve unintended mistakes by voters or administrators, from probation officers to NC DMV officials to local and state boards of elections.
Importantly, this audit only examines ineligible voters. An audit of eligible voters whose voices were nearly silenced would produce much larger numbers. For example, in the 2016 general election:
**The State Board’s data matching systems rescued the provisional ballots of 428 eligible voters that county boards of elections initially rejected;
**A federal court rescued the ballots of 1,500 eligible voters who were initially turned away because their registrations weren’t properly transferred from the DMV to a county board of elections;
**100,000 voters were rescued by a provision called same-day registration during early voting; these were eligible citizens who showed up to vote but were not on the rolls because of some administrative glitch or because they didn’t follow all the rules.
In the end, we will all benefit from stronger investments in voter education and elections administration. Our democracy works best when more people participate. It’s important that policymakers understand the stories behind the cases of eligible and ineligible voters, and not use simplistic data to fan voter fraud hysteria or justify new barriers to voting.”
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Democracy North Carolina is a statewide nonpartisan organization that uses research, organizing, and training to increase civic participation, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and remove systemic barriers to voting and serving in elected office.
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