The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) is facing a new lawsuit after the Republican National Committee (RNC) sued the state, alleging that it opened the door to voting for non-citizens.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Wake County by the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, accuses the NCSBE and its members Alan Hirsch, Jeff Carmon, Siobhan Millen, Stacey Eggers IV and Kevin Lewis of failing to require people to show identification to prove their citizenship.
The lawsuit alleges that the elections department violated the Help America Vote Act by not checking the identification of approximately 225,000 voters, “opening the door to voting for non-U.S. citizens.”
North Carolina is the first state in the nation to open the polls, with ballots being mailed to voters in the battleground state starting September 6th.
“NCSBE has once again failed in its job to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls, raising doubts and putting our elections at risk,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. “We are committed to fundamental principles and common-sense laws that state that our elections are decided solely by Americans. Willfully failing to follow the law so soon as one of our nation's most important elections is unacceptable. We will fight every day to ensure that NCSBE follows the law, cleans the voter rolls, and protects the voting rights of North Carolinians.”
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An “I Voted” sticker is displayed at a polling station at the Wayne County Public Library in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. (Alison Joyce/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This state elections board has consistently had trouble ensuring that only verified citizens are on the voter rolls,” added NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons. “This lawsuit will remedy their ongoing refusal to collect necessary information from those who want to participate in North Carolina elections. It is long past time that the most partisan elections board in the state's history be held accountable and faithful to follow the rule of law.”
The state board previously used voter registration forms that didn't require voters to provide identifying information required by HAVA, such as their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Election officials acknowledged that the forms were not HAVA-compliant and eventually corrected them, but in the meantime, about 225,000 people registered without providing the information required by HAVA, the lawsuit says.
Election officials allegedly refused to take corrective action and failed to contact these voters to gather the necessary information. Instead, the defendants “offered as a solution half-hearted promises that those who were allowed to register when they were ineligible would automatically be removed from state voter rolls as they conducted other election-related activities,” the complaint states.
“This inaction misses the point,” the lawsuit states. “Not only does this 'solution' fail to remedy the continuing violations of state and federal law or account for Defendants' liability under the law, it leaves North Carolinians wondering how they can trust the security of their elections when the people tasked with protecting their rights don't even seem to care to do what the law requires them to do.”
Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the North Carolina Aviation Museum and Hall of Fame on August 21, 2024 in Asheboro, North Carolina. (Peter Zai/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Worse yet, this 'solution' sends a message to millions of legitimate, registered voters in North Carolina that state election officials are abdicating their responsibility and refusing to verify whether people who vote in state elections are entitled to vote in the first place,” the report adds.
Fox News Digital reached out to NCSBE for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
This is the second lawsuit filed within weeks by the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina State Board of Elections against the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Republicans sued the committee last month, alleging that it failed to check juror questionnaire responses to identify and remove foreign nationals from voter rolls, as required by law.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris campaigns at the Hendrick Center of Automotive Excellence in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 16, 2024. (Grant Baldwin/Getty Images)
Last year, the state legislature passed SB 747, a key election integrity law that requires the state elections board to check if someone claims to be a non-citizen on a jury questionnaire to ensure they are not on the voter rolls. The RNC and NCGOP claim that even though the law goes into effect on July 1, the elections board has not begun to enforce it.
In February, the North Carolina Department of Budget and Management reported that about 325,000 “illegal” immigrants were living in the state.
According to the complaint in the case, there are 501,000 foreign-born non-citizens in North Carolina.
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Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also sued the North Carolina state commission for denying his request to remove his name from the state's ballot before the November election. The candidate withdrew from the race and endorsed former President Trump, but the commission decided in a 3-2 vote to keep Kennedy's name on the ballot because nearly 2 million ballots had already been printed.
Kennedy also failed to withdraw his candidacy in Michigan and Wisconsin, two battleground states.
