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North Carolina voter purge: Should citizens investigate the rolls?

A federal judge ruled North Carolina should restore voter registrations for those who were purged from the rolls based on challenges from citizen groups recently.

A federal judge in North Carolina ordered state election officials on Friday to restore thousands of voter registrations that were purged from the rolls in recent months, with some alleging that the cancellations targeted African-Americans voters.

On Monday, some affected voters 鈥撀爓ho had showed up at the polls only to find themselves removed聽鈥撀爁iled a lawsuit together with the NAACP calling the cancellations an illegal effort to suppress African-American votes.

鈥淸T]here is little question that the County Boards鈥� process of allowing third parties to challenge hundreds and, in Cumberland County, thousands of voters within 90 days before the 2016 General Election constitutes the type of by the [National Voter Registration Act],鈥� US District Judge Loretta Biggs wrote in her ruling, as reported by News & Observer.

Judge Biggs had earlier called the purge 鈥渋nsane,鈥� similar to something out of the Jim Crow era.

While the incident occurs in the midst of an election season rife with talk of voter fraud, citizen efforts to "clean" voter rolls has gone on since .

Some studies have pointed out that voter registration systems to filter out ineligible individuals. But are citizen-led efforts the best method to address it聽鈥撀燼nd is Biggs clamping down on a grassroots movement to improve the electoral system?

Some experts say that relying on citizen efforts without in-depth validation by state and federal officials can be dangerous.

鈥淭here is a process in the National Voting Rights Act [NVRA] for addressing duplication and other problems with voter lists, and that process is pretty clearly stated,鈥� says Thad Hall, subject matter specialist with research company Fors Marsh Group and a former professor at the University of Utah, in a phone interview with 海角大神.

鈥淭he problem with citizens trying to do it is that we already know from voter registration that there are a lot of little things that occur that makes you think something is wrong with the list when there isn鈥檛.鈥�

Mr. Hall raised examples of similar names, errors in data entry for birthdays, outdated addresses, and other issues. He points out that after identifying suspicious cases, the key is the research and investigation to determine if the case is valid.

In the North Carolina case, members of the Voter Integrity Project had in the three counties and marked down those that came back as undeliverable or unreturned. They submitted those names to county boards, who then canceled their voter registration.

But according to federal law, states cannot remove voters from the roll within 90 days of the election and two federal elections have to pass before it can take effect. Judge Biggs also raised concerns about the strategy of relying on unreturned mail to determine that the voter doesn鈥檛 live in a registered location. They may have moved within the county and remain eligible to vote there, or, as in one of the plaintiff鈥檚 cases, noted by CNN, and not her house.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections countered that private individuals can challenge eligibility of any county voter up to 25 days before the election. Before the registration is revoked, the affected individual will be able to receive a notice and attend a hearing with the board of elections as well. But since they sent the mail to the same addresses, many of the voters that they're being challenged.聽

鈥淭he biggest danger is removing someone from the roll who shouldn鈥檛 be removed,鈥� explains Charles Stewart III, professor of political science at MIT.

鈥淲e see increasing attempts by citizen groups and local officials in the heat of a campaign trying to challenge voters," he tells the Monitor. "It鈥檚 improper in the days before election, unless there is direct evidence.鈥�

Professor Stewart described multi-state efforts to update voter rolls, such as the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) that compares multiple databases across states to reflect changes and alert officials to out-of-date data in the system.

As of July, have signed up for the program. Other solutions tested by various states include automatic voter registrations and same-day voter registrations.

But some experts say that scant evidence exists of voter fraud occurring even with outdated voter registration systems, and the citizen groups involved in these incidents have been to have partisan ties, thus igniting suspicions.

鈥淚t鈥檚 troubling when private groups are doing this because they may be wrong and because they may be engaging in partisan manipulation,鈥� Daniel Tokaji, law professor at Ohio State University tells the Monitor in a phone interview. 鈥淚 think the big problem is that some states fail to comply with the requirements of the NVRA. It鈥檚 not as though we have an epidemic of voting fraud.鈥�

The North Carolina State Board of Elections has said it is working to establish procedures necessary to comply with the court orders before election day.