LOD: Thousands of 112 Year Old Voters in NC?

The NC State Board of Elections has released a letter in response to trumped up allegations by NC Civitas blogger Sue Myrick that thousands of 112 year olds are on the voter rolls and voted in North Carolina this year. The Board’s response emphatically states that these reports are not accurate and gives the facts about why some NC voters, called “legacy” voters, appear to have amazing longevity. Prior to the enactment of the National Voter Registration act of 1993, date of birth was not a requirement for voter registration. After the enactment of NVRA, the State Board was required to record a date of birth for every person registering to vote. The many voters who had not volunteered a date of birth when they registered prior to 1993 were assigned a “legacy” birth date of 01/01/1900.

While there are no rampant cases of centenarians voting, what does seem rampant is the kind of ill-researched assertion of voter fraud from groups like Civitas and the Voter Integrity Project, which we’ve covered in earlier links of the day. As we’ve said before, there’s always room for improvement, but current registration and voting procedures actually work well.  If groups like Civitas are truly concerned about election integrity, they should work with officials to address real challenges – like technology issues, staffing shortages at the state and county boards of elections and the need for more, better trained poll workers – instead of constantly attempting to damage the credibility of the election process.