*Editor's Note: This article has been updated to include stats on NHC photo id exemption forms.
On Tuesday, May 28, the New Hanover County Commissions on Hispanic-Latino, African American History, Heritage, and Culture, Women, and the City of Wilmington and New Hanover Joint Community Relations Advisory Committee (C-RAC) met to hear an update from Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens on voting rules for the upcoming 2024 Election, including information on voter identification laws.
There were about 50 attendees, and a vocal minority questioned whether non-citizens are preparing to vote.
State Board of Elections records show for the 2016 election, only one non-citizen voted out of the 112,588 New Hanover County residents who cast ballots. This data also shows that non-citizens voting in the state that year also equated to almost 0%—41 out of 4.8 million people.
*You can find the 2016 NCSBOE Audit at the end of this report. There was also a 2020 audit, which wasn’t as in-depth as 2016 but found “no evidence that 2020 results [were] not accurate.”
Meeting turns tense
Much of the meeting, intended to be an informational presentation about the state’s voter identification laws, turned into Hunter-Havens fielding questions from people who had shown up with questions about undocumented voters.
They were there at the behest of a group known as New Hanover County Concerned Citizens (NHCCC). Similar groups have sprung up around the country over the last few years, dedicated to conservative issues ranging from opposing drag performances that allow children in the audience to removing and banning books they deem inappropriate to concerns over election integrity. The latter are often voiced without evidence. The group sometimes share membership with right-wing extremist movements, like the Proud Boys, but also with the traditional conservative political establishment.
Related: Neofascism, irony, and leaderless resistance ... yes, we're talking about the Proud Boys
A post on the Telegram app acquired by WHQR asked members to attend the meeting, writing, “Please try to attend and support Election integrity. This is of growing importance with so many illegal immigrants invading our GREAT NATION. #STOPTHECHEAT. Thanks for all you do to support conservatism in New Hanover County.”
Diane Zaryki, who sent the NHCCC message, attended the meeting and asked several questions about the Board of Elections’ ability to verify citizenship status. [Editor's note: WHQR has contacted Zarkyi for additional comment and has yet to hear back.]
One comment that sparked debate at the meeting was Hunter-Havens's statement that while there are ways to check a voter’s citizenship status when they check that box on the voter registration form, it is on the “honor system, in some sense.”
Zarkyi focused on this comment, saying, “I don't think that the requirement to get an ID to vote in the United States of America should be on the honor system. We have 20 million illegals who have flooded our country. We now have the Board of Elections…”
Some people in the room audibly gasped when Zarkyi said this, and Liz Carbone, the chair of C-RAC, interjected to tell her that she could give public comments at the end of the meeting; however, she didn't stay.
Certifying voter citizenship
The voter registration form asks whether a person is a citizen of the United States. Citizens are either born in the United States or naturalized, and it is against the law to vote in an election if a person is not. Specifically, a provision in North Carolina law makes it a felony if a person registers to vote and is not a citizen.
The form also prompts a person to provide their date of birth, driver’s license number, or the last four digits of their social security number. These numbers are then validated against the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.
While only one non-citizen voted in the 2016 presidential election, the Board of Elections does verify the registration against the NCDMV data, which indicates whether a state driver’s license indicates a ‘non-citizen’ restriction code.
Another data point from the 2016 audit was that four Mexicans voted unlawfully out of 4.8 million voters in the state, basically rounding down to 0%. In the audit report, these cases are mainly attributed to not understanding the rules around voting.
There are national databases that check citizenship status, but they are unreliable, according to Patrick Gannon, the public information director for the State Board of Elections.
“There is no comprehensive, accurate, or up-to-date database of U.S. citizens that election administrators could use for verification purposes,” he said.
“However, if election officials learn that a non-U.S. citizen registers and/or votes in an election, the Investigations Division of the State Board of Elections will conduct an investigation," he said.
Gannon said if the evidence warrants this investigation, the State Board will forward it for possible prosecution. He reiterated that “Typically, there are very few, if any, cases of noncitizen registration or voting referred for prosecution statewide each year, which demonstrates how infrequent it is for noncitizens to register or vote.”
More questions, photo ID
Other community members joined Zarkyi in questioning how well the board follows the relatively new voter ID law, which took effect with the 2023 municipal elections.
One woman questioned why a person’s address would not be on the BOE’s printed free ID. Hunter-Havens said the free ID has the person’s voter registration number on the card, which is a way to verify their address for voting.
Nonetheless, the woman asked Hunter-Havens again about this address verification. Hunter-Havens said that it is not part of the photo ID verification process, but yes, poll workers verify each person’s address when they present to vote.
Gannon added that election officials verify addresses through a “verification mailing to the address the registrant provided on their application. If the Postal Service does not return that mailing as undeliverable, the applicant will be registered to vote. The CBE [county Board of Elections] will send another verification mailing if that card is returned as undeliverable. If that mailing is also returned as undeliverable, the applicant will not be registered.”
If they do not have a photo ID, voters can fill out a voter ID exemption form. Possible reasons for filling this out are lack of transportation, disability or illness, lack of birth certificate or other documents needed to get an ID, work or school schedule, family responsibilities, ID is stolen/lost/misplaced, a person applied for one but didn’t receive it, or ‘other impediments.’
If the person writes ‘other,’ they must write the reason.
Hunter-Havens said it’s the not job of the NHC Elections Board, a five-member board, to “question the usefulness of that choice” or whether or not their excuse is “reasonable in that context.”
Still, she said, the board can question if a voter says, for example, “‘I refuse to show photo ID because it’s unconstitutional’ or ‘I refuse to show it because I don’t agree with it.’ That’s something the board could lend itself to.”
Zarkyi told Hunter-Havens, “So does the law we fought so hard for to require photo ID allow for an exemption form to be negated?”
Hunter-Havens said, “Yes, and the exemption form is allowable under that law.”
So far, it is rare for voters not to come without a photo ID. For example, in the 2024 primary elections, only 70 out of 40,839 New Hanover County voters needed to fill out a photo ID exemption form (about .2% of voters).
The BOE didn't disqualify any photo ID exemption forms for the 2023 municipal and 2024 primary elections.
However, Hunter-Havens said that turnout in the 2023 municipal election and the 2024 primary — which both featured the new voter ID guidelines — was around 21% and 22.5%, respectively. In 2020, the last presidential year, where there was no ID requirement, the turnout for NHC was 75% — so her question is, will all those additional voters know about the requirement to have an ID?
“So that’s quite a different picture, and so one of the things that we're going to be doing over the next couple of months is doing a very robust voter education campaign,” she said.
Hunter-Havens said they hope to bring their photo ID printing machine to non-partisan events and places to help the public with this voting rule.
Another caveat she wanted to emphasize is that if a resident is voting early and forgets their ID, they can vote a ‘provisional’ ballot and then present it at the BOE office at least by the day before canvass when the election results are certified.
For provisional ballots cast, which typically means a person is voting outside their precinct on Election Day or there’s “some question about the voter’s eligibility, and the [BOE] doesn’t want to turn them away, so that gives the office enough time to research eligibility,” she said.
For those who fill out absentee-by-mail ballots early, the BOE can also help them correct deficiencies.
“Anything related to the voter can be cured with a deficiency. So we noticed that a voter, when they returned that voted ballot back to us, did not include the photo ID; we reached out to them within one business day of seeing that deficiency. We send them some information by mail, but then we also contact them by email and phone if we have it,” she said.
She also told the audience that her office takes its jobs seriously and ensures voter information is “accurate and uniform.” She added that all 100 county BOEs implement the same rules and procedures in compliance with state law and guidance from the State Board of Elections.
Voting data and information by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
