The executive director of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections is asking the head of the Division of Motor Vehicles for Social Security numbers of DMV customers who are also registered voters. The week-old request is designed to help state elections officials “maintain the most accurate voter rolls possible.”
Elections director Sam Hayes sent a two-page letter on Sept. 29 to DMV Commissioner Paul Tine. Tine had not responded to the letter as of Monday afternoon, elections officials confirmed.
“The State Board of Elections (‘State Board’) appreciates the ongoing partnership with the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (‘NCDMV’) to register eligible North Carolinians to vote in person at NCDMV offices and electronically through the online service,” Hayes wrote. “This partnership makes registering to vote easy and efficient and helps ensure that our state’s voters have access to the ballot box.”
“I write today to request that the NCDMV provide certain data to the State Board to help us maintain the most accurate voter rolls possible for the citizens of this state,” Hayes continued. “Specifically, I ask that the NCDMV engage in a more robust data-sharing and matching program with election officials, to include providing full Social Security numbers for registered voters who are also NCDMV customers.”
“Having these numbers would help maintain accurate voter rolls because election officials would be able to match these numbers against data in other government databases to ensure proper removal of voters due to deaths and felony convictions,” Hayes wrote. “It would also allow us to better identify when an individual has ‘duplicate’ registrations, or more than one registration on the rolls. Finally, having full Social Security numbers would allow us to identify non-U.S. citizens who may be unlawfully registered to vote.”
“As you know, Russ Ferguson, the United States Attomey for the Western District of North Carolina, shared concerns and evidence that NCDMV examiners had mistakenly processed voter registrations for non-citizens as recently as 2024,” the letter continued. “As the state’s chief election official, I share these concerns and ask that your agency provide the data necessary to ensure our voter rolls are free of non-U.S. citizens and remain as accurate and up to date as possible.”
Hayes referenced Section 303 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. It “requires the state officials responsible for elections and the motor vehicle agency to enter into a data-sharing agreement ‘to the extent required … to verify the accuracy of the information provided on applications for voter registration.’”
Elections staff pledged to work with DMV staff “to ensure that any transfer of data can be accomplished securely and in full compliance with state and federal laws,” Hayes wrote. “We commit to maintaining this data securely in our election management system, as we have with sensitive voter data continuously for decades.”
“I believe we all agree that voting accessibility and voting integrity are equally important as we work toward the most accessible, fair, and accurate elections for North Carolina’s 7.6 million registered voters,” Hayes added. “With full Social Security numbers of registered voters, we can all be sure that non-U.S. citizens registered to vote can be identified and removed from the voter list, in addition to the additional benefits described above.”
State and federal legal action dating back to summer 2024 has focused on the accuracy of the North Carolina State Board of Elections’s voter rolls.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party filed suit in August 2024 challenging the former Democrat-majority elections board’s handling of voter registration information.
The GOP complaint challenged 225,000 voter registrations linked to a form that did not require prospective voters to provide a driver’s license number or last four digits of the Social Security number. Republican groups asked for the affected voters to be dropped from the voting rolls or required to cast a provisional ballot in the 2024 general election.
Courts refused to force the elections board to take that step.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin later raised the same issue in ballot challenges after the election. Trailing Democrat Allison Riggs by 734 votes, Griffin challenged more than 65,000 votes cast in the contest. More than 60,000 of those ballots involved voters whose registration records appeared to lack the required HAVA information.
The state Supreme Court ultimately decided that those votes would count in the final election tally. Griffin conceded the election after a federal judge declined to support a “cure” process that would have affected ballots Griffin challenged for other reasons.
The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in May challenging the elections board’s voter registration rolls. A federal judge signed off on a settlement of that lawsuit in September. But the Democratic National Committee and a group working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm challenge the settlement. Justice Department lawyers have asked for the dispute to remain on hold until after the federal government shutdown ends.
Carolina Journal’s call Monday afternoon to the state Department of Transportation/Division of Motor Vehicles media line ended up transferred to a line with a full voicemail mailbox. An email to DOT’s message system had not generated a response by press time.
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