Immigration agents checking voter registration records last month found at least four cases of noncitizens in North Carolina who they say illegally registered to vote.

Three of the people have been arrested, and officials are looking for the fourth.

Agents recently added more public records -- including voter registration -- to the list of databases they routinely check during investigation. They only do this for people already flagged for investigation, including people suspected of being here illegally, as well as legal residents seeking citizenship. So far, about 50 people in 31 North Carolina counties have been looked into this way.

"It's a very personal charge to us," said Tom O'Connell, resident agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Cary office. "It goes to the integrity of the entire democratic system when we have ... aliens registering to vote."

Registering to vote often requires a person to swear he or she is a U.S. citizen, and it's a federal crime for noncitizens to lie to officials about their legal status.

In the past, voter registration cards could help immigrants get through a border crossing or prove work eligibility.

That is not supposed to happen anymore, O'Connell said, and many experts doubt large numbers of illegal immigrants are registering to vote.

"If you are in this country illegally, you are likely to do things to stay below the radar," said election law expert Richard Hasen, a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "Walking in and committing a felony for no personal gain is not a wise choice."

Misunderstandings

In North Carolina, Johnnie McLean, the State Board of Elections chief deputy director, remembers one case of a noncitizen voting a couple of years ago, and it was a misunderstanding. "He just honestly did not know," she said.

That is what lawyers for the two immigrants facing criminal charges related to voter registration argued could have happened to their clients.

One of them, Mahmoud "Mike" Alkurdasi, has lived legally in North Carolina since the early 1990s. He owns about 20 Subways and is a substantial landowner in Cumberland County.

According to State Board of Elections records, he is a registered Republican, though he has never voted.

Attorney Mary Jude Darrow said her client doesn't remember registering and had even been told he would be permitted to become a naturalized citizen.

"He's just really hurt and doesn't understand why this is happening -- after they had told him that he was cleared to be sworn in," she said.

David Muhemedy, 22, also was charged with felonies related to registering to vote. A registered Democrat, he did vote in the 2004 presidential election.

He could spend years in prison before being deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country he left when he was 6 years old, according to court documents.

Muhemedy's mother brought him and his sister, Grace, to the United States, according to court records. The family requested and was denied asylum, and was ordered deported in 1995, when Muhemedy was 11.

During a hearing in November, Assistant Federal Public Defender Devon Donahue argued that Muhemedy might not have known he wasn't a U.S. citizen.

"You have no way of knowing if [Muhemedy's mother] informed her 11-year-old of what happened," she said in court.

O'Connell said ICE thinks David Muhemedy knew he was in the country illegally, though he wouldn't say why.

Ease of registration

Voter registration laws in most parts of the country don't require written proof of citizenship.

In North Carolina, people check a box and sign a "Voter Declaration," which certifies under penalty of perjury that a person is a U.S. citizen, among other things.

It is so easy to register that Attracta Kelly of the Immigrant Legal Assistance Project at the N.C. Justice Center warns clients against even taking the form when going to the Division of Motor Vehicles office because it could hurt their chances of ever getting citizenship.

"Especially if they don't speak English very well. They just think it's a part of their [driver's license] test," she said. "It's handed oftentimes to people who are just legal residents."

Easy registration was meant not to exclude anyone eligible to vote from casting ballots.

But Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that testified in June about the threat of illegal immigrants influencing elections, said other countries have some kind of voter verification procedure.

"There's nothing wrong with asking people to go through a little bit of effort to avoid fraud," he said.

(News researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)