DOJ Slams North Carolina Over Voter Roll Chaos, Demands Fix

The Department of Justice has thrown a legal haymaker at North Carolina, accusing the state of fumbling its voter rolls in violation of federal law. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims the Tar Heel State’s voter registration process is a mess, failing to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA). At issue? A registration form that didn’t clearly require a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number—or, for those without either, a state-assigned ID number.

The DOJ alleges that thousands of North Carolina voters were registered without these identifiers, leaving the state’s voter database looking like a poorly kept scorecard. The feds are demanding a court order to force North Carolina to clean up its act within 30 days, contacting non-compliant voters to get their records straight. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon didn’t mince words: accurate voter rolls are the backbone of fair elections, and the DOJ’s ready to swing at any state dropping the ball.

This isn’t the first time the issue’s been flagged. Last year, when Democrats held a majority on the state elections board, a voter complaint prompted a form update, but the board didn’t bother reaching out to voters registered since 2004 to fix missing data. Instead, they opted for a haphazard approach, collecting info at polling places—an effort the DOJ calls insufficient. The GOP, meanwhile, estimated up to 225,000 voters might lack proper identifiers, though federal judges refused to meddle so close to the 2024 election.

The drama ties into North Carolina’s razor-thin 2024 Supreme Court race, where Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin challenged 65,500 ballots, claiming 60,000 came from voters without proper ID numbers. The state elections board countered that roughly half those voters did provide identifiers. Griffin lost to Democrat Allison Riggs by just 734 votes, conceding earlier this month but not without grumbling about the process. Adding fuel to the fire, a recent shift gave Republicans a 3-2 edge on the elections board, and new Executive Director Sam Hayes seems ready to tackle the DOJ’s demands, admitting the HAVA violations are ‘well documented.’

With local elections looming in September, North Carolina’s got to get its voter rolls in fighting shape—or risk more legal punches from the feds.