Voter registration stories caused confusion

Will new voters in North Carolina have a hard time casting their ballots on Election Day? You might think so, if you read The N&O's Oct. 9 story "Voter purges appear illegal." The front-page story from The New York Times News Service said North Carolina was among six states that have been improperly or even illegally removing voters from registration rolls or blocking registrations.

"The screening and trimming of the voter registration lists in the six states ... could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day," the story said. "People who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers."

Sounds scary. But state elections officials say there has been no purging of voters in North Carolina and the only confusion is from The N&O's reporting on the issue.

"There has been no one deleted from the rolls in North Carolina," said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections. "We feel like this is a story where a concern has been made into something major where it isn't anything major, and it just confuses the voter into thinking something is wrong when there isn't."

Bartlett said the New York Times story and a follow-up the next day produced 200 or so phone calls and e-mails "calling us creeps and saying we're asleep at the switch." The second-day story, also on the front page, attempted to clarify the situation but only added to the confusion, said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a voter advocacy organization.

"It was a terrible job of journalism, in my view," Hall said in an e-mail. In an interview, he added: "It is misinformation that can affect people who are new voters who may worry about the status of their registration and, secondly, a mischaracterization about the integrity of the North Carolina election system, which affects us all."

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THE STORIES SAID THAT NORTH CAROLINA AND THE OTHER STATES ARE IMPROPERLY CHECKING new registrants' Social Security numbers to verify their voting eligibility. The Social Security database is notoriously inaccurate, which means it can cause false "flagging" of registrations.

New voters provide as identification N.C. driver's license numbers and/or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, and the state's computers automatically check the numbers for verification. If either number is verified, the voter is qualified to vote, even if the other number doesn't match.

If the voter provides only a Social Security number and it does not match the federal database, then that voter is "flagged" for further identification, Bartlett said. The voter is not purged from the rolls. Rather, he or she is mailed a notice seeking further identification, which the voter can supply in advance, at the polls or even within 10 days after the election. That process has been used since 2006 without problems, Bartlett said.

The Social Security Administration this month sent North Carolina a letter advising that its checks of Social Security numbers were high, compared to other states, and telling the state to check driver's license numbers before using Social Security numbers. North Carolina's computers have been set to check both simultaneously, and Bartlett said the state would change the process after the election to comply.

All that was explained in The N&O's follow-up story on Oct. 10. But Hall said the headline ("N.C. to change the way it vets its new voters") and lead paragraphs continued to suggest that the current process obstructs voting. "The newspaper promoted the notion that North Carolina was changing 'the way it vets its new voters' as a result of newspaper findings of improper, if not illegal, use of SSN checks. Again, the implication is North Carolina is doing something wrong that adds barriers to voting," he said.