Republicans sue NC elections board, alleging ‘deliberate’ flouting of voter roll review law

The Republican National Committee and North Carolina GOP allege that the North Carolina State Board of Elections has “deliberately declined” to enforce the law.

In a news release, they said the lawsuit was designed to “force the NCSBE to immediately clean the voter rolls and prevent non-citizens from voting in November.”

“The NCSBE has chosen to blatantly ignore the law, undermine basic election safeguards, and neglect a fundamental principle of our election integrity,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said. “The RNC and NCGOP defended this law in court, and now we will make sure the NCSBE follows and enforces these critical safeguards in The Old North State.”

A spokesperson for the board of elections said Republican claims that they were refusing to comply with the law were “categorically false.”

Elections staff this month cross-checked voter rolls with lists of those excused from jury duty because they said they were not citizens, spokesperson Patrick Gannon said.

They found eight individuals who matched both lists.

If those eight people are found to not be U.S. citizens via databases, they’ll be asked to cancel their registration. But federal law prevents the state board from directly removing people from the rolls within 90 days of an election. A new process involving county boards of elections will begin in 2025.

“The State Board has been transparent about this process from the very beginning,” Gannon said by email. “Agency staff briefed Republican legislative leadership staff of its compliance plans as early as last November.

“The State Board informed all election officials, Republican and Democratic, of this program at its publicly open statewide elections conference at the beginning of this month. And agency staff have been traveling the state over the past month, informing clerks of court at their regional conferences of how this program must be carried out this year to comply with federal law. These clerks are both Republicans and Democrats.”

The elections board is requesting that Republicans “immediately rescind their press releases” on the matter — arguing that they will “undermine voter confidence on an entirely false premise.”

GOP says lack of enforcement would make it ‘more difficult’ for them to win

In their lawsuit, Republicans argue that a lack of enforcement “will make the competitive environment worse for (the RNC and NCGOP) and more difficult for their candidates (and voters) to win in the upcoming election.”

“Plaintiffs should not be forced to compete in an illegally structured voting environment, in which people claiming non-citizenship are not investigated and potentially removed from voter rolls in accordance with the law,” the lawsuit says.

The party is also asking for the state board to produce documents requested under North Carolina’s public records law.

Republicans’ records request has not been denied, Gannon said. But he said that to the board’s knowledge, “there was no attempt” to follow up and resolve their records request before suing, which is required.

Non-citizens voting is already illegal in federal elections. But Republicans in North Carolina and elsewhere have raised it as a possibility — and even proposed a constitutional amendment proposal on the matter — ahead of November.

It ties two issues key to former President Donald Trump and broader Republican messaging — immigration and election security.

The North Carolina lawsuit comes hours after the Supreme Court allowed partial enforcement of an Arizona law barring people from voting if they don’t provide proof of citizenship upon registration.

This story originally appeared in NC Newsline and is shared under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.