Some forms of voter suppression — like gerrymandering and voter ID laws — are so easy to understand and obviously malicious that they are widely debated and vigorously resisted by voting rights defenders everywhere. Megawatts of electrons have been spilled here at Daily Kos, as elsewhere on the internet, decrying them. And yet the single largest cause of disenfranchisement in many states is hardly ever a topic of discussion, protests, or lawsuits, so there’s a good chance that the statistic in this headline might surprise you. Maybe you’re even thinking “wait...that can’t possibly be right.”
But it is. Here are the facts.
According to official North Carolina State Board of Elections data, on November 8th 2016 just about 1.6 million would-be voters lined up at their precinct polling places to cast their votes. And just over 50,000 of them...3 percent of all those voters, or 1 out of every 32 people in line...were turned away at the sign-in desk because their names could not be found in the poll book. Instead, they were directed to speak to the nice poll worker at the “trouble desk,” where it was patiently explained to them that they could still vote a “provisional ballot”…one that might or might not actually be counted, depending on each individual’s particular circumstances. And in 2016, fewer than 40% of such provisional votes were, in fact, counted.
While there are no similarly official statistics to support this, it seems likely that each and every one of those 50,000 voters were surprised as all hell to learn that they could not vote a regular ballot and be assured that they had been permitted to exercise their right to vote. Here are four of the top reasons why they were turned away:
| reason | # OF VOTERS |
|---|---|
| No record of registration | 36,340 |
| unreported move | 7,845 |
| previously removed | 5,635 |
| jurisdiction dispute | 696 |
“No record of registration” means just that: the voter’s name could not be found in the registration database. “Sorry, we’ve never heard of you.” Did you simply fail to register? Or were you caught in one of North Carolina’s famed snafus, such as the thousands of voter registration forms that go missing each year at DMV offices? We can’t say for sure.
”Unreported move” means that the address you gave the poll worker at the sign-in table didn’t match the address in your voter registration record. “Sorry; we don’t know where you live.” Maybe you just forgot to update your registration after you moved across town. Or, again, maybe you did update your registration, but that form was never processed by the state board of elections. Either way, it sucks bein’ you. Get outta line.
”Previously removed”? It’s impossible to know quite what that means, except that you were once listed in the poll book, but then you were removed by a county board of elections worker. Was your name confused with that of another voter who had died or moved out of state? Did you fall afoul of Kris Kobach’s Crosscheck scam? Impossible to say. All we know for sure is “no regular ballot for you!”
”Jurisdiction dispute” means that someone...most likely a partisan ‘polling place observer’, claimed that you don’t actually live in this precinct, and you found yourself unable to prove otherwise, right on the spot, to the polling place worker’s satisfaction. Here too, it just sucks bein’ you.
Why don’t more voting rights organizations actively work to reduce these shocking numbers? Because, until now, it wasn’t clear how one might do that. No organization can possibly file 50,000 lawsuits, challenging each and every regular ballot denial. And there’s no catchy chant that demonstrators can use as they march down the street in protest.
But now, NC-GoVote has the solution. Sign up for our free and absolutely private Reg Watch service and we’ll inform you, via email, if your voter registration record suddenly and inexplicably goes sideways sometime before this November...never mind the reason, whether it’s Kris Kobach, Russian hackers, or just a fat-fingered data entry clerk at the board of elections. With that advance warning you’ll have plenty of time to fix your voter registration problem, no matter the cause, and you’ll thus be able to vote on election day and have your vote counted. Our success in this effort will mean delivering an additional 50,000+ votes in 2018...which would be a stunning GOTV achievement.
If you’re a North Carolinian and you agree with me that turning away one out of every thirty-two would-be voters is absolutely unacceptable and needs to stop, sign up for Reg Watch today.
We’ve got your back, North Carolina.