The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections after it failed to follow federal election law.
The lawsuit alleges that more than 200,000 people may be inappropriately included on the state’s voter rolls, lacking necessary identification. According to the DOJ, the state violated the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
“In violation of HAVA’s mandate and clear Congressional intent, the State of North Carolina used a state voter registration form that did not explicitly require a voter to provide a driver’s license or the last four digits of a social security number,” the lawsuit states, noting that a “significant number of North Carolina voters who did not provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a social security number using that voter registration form were nonetheless registered by their election officials, in violation of HAVA.”
The lawsuit further states that despite admitting to HAVA violations, defendants “only took limited actions to prevent future violations from reoccurring by adopting a new voter registration form that required applicants to provide their driver’s license or last four digits of their social security number, if they had one of those forms of identification.”
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”
The DOJ’s action supports President Trump’s executive order boosting election integrity. The order asserts that it is the policy of the Trump administration to “enforce Federal law and to protect the integrity of our election process.”
