Federal Court Orders North Carolina to Fix Voter Registration Errors Before Primary

North Carolina has faced legal challenges over compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), particularly regarding voters who did not provide required identification information such as driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers when registering. A federal court entered a consent order requiring the state to collect and timely enter this information into voter databases, with letters sent to affected voters starting in August 2025. The North Carolina Board of Elections has revised guidance to allow approximately 98,000 voters with mismatched registration information to vote using regular ballots, provided they present acceptable ID at the polls, rather than provisional ballots, acknowledging common causes for data mismatches including name changes and data entry errors. This approach followed a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, which highlighted potential issues with up to 200,000 voter registrations lacking full or accurate identification data. The Board also initiated a Registration Repair Project to update voter records statewide, with counties reviewing and validating identification numbers to ensure compliance and improve the accuracy of the voter rolls. These efforts aim to balance election integrity with voter access by addressing technical and administrative discrepancies without disenfranchising compliant voters.