Times story on voter databases gets it wrong on North Carolina

Rumor control. The NY Times yesterday ran a thinly researched article on voter purges in several states including North Carolina, "States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal" (10/08/08) . It uses lots of vague talk like "seems," "appears," or "may have . . .," without much elaboration or direct reporting. The NY Times reporter did not cite comments from any North Carolina election officials or any local advocacy groups. The fact is, we're ok in North Carolina, there are no purges going on. Read more:

The NY Times reporter even seems to clear North Carolina in his response to my email asking what was going on. Read it here:

From: Ian Urbina
To: joyce mccloy
Subject: RE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=pol...
Date: Oct 9, 2008 9:03 AM
From what we can see in the data, NC does not seem to have any major red
flags. Best we can tell, it looks like the number of people coming off the
rolls would roughly correspond with the number of people leaving the state
or dying during that period (both of which are legitimate reasons to remove
people within 90 days before an election).

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: joyce mccloy
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:54 AM
To: URBINA
Subject: FW:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=pol...
s&oref=slogin

Here a North Carolina reporter does some investigating, makes some phone calls, and the story is much different:

Times story on voter databases called 'very misleading' Thursday, October 9 By Mark Binker Staff Writer

The Times story said that North Carolina had been warned that it was checking an abnormally large number of social security numbers against a federal database and that federal officials were worried the state could be improperly excluding voters.

But Elections Director Gary Bartlett said Social Security Numbers were only being checked in the case where a drivers' license or other acceptable form of identification has not been provided.

...North Carolina has registered more than 700,000 new voters since the beginning of the year and may top 800,000 by Nov. 1. Of those, about 400,000 have been run through the federal Social Security database.

The state, Bartlett said, had a high number of universities, military personnel and businesses that bring people in from out of state. Often those people don't have drivers' likenesses when they register to vote and therefore use their Social Security Number to verify their identity.

No one is denied registration if their Social Security number does not match said Bartlett and local elections officials....

Now here's what I have to say, as a voters advocate and as someone who been a watchdog for several years:

NC Election Officials do their best to avoid making unfair purges of the voting rolls, and do not conduct "purges" in the 90 day lead up to the election. Officials here have stood up to several efforts by weighty officials:

The State Board of Elections rebuffed efforts by DOJ John Tanner, a posterboy for voter purges - earlier this year when Tanner sent a letter to the NC State Board of Elections advising them that they needed to trim the rolls.NC had too many voters! See Why is the DoJ Snooping Into NC's Voter Rolls
The State Board also fought off the attempts of the partisan state auditor who wanted more voters removed from the rolls. The auditor ended up having to back away from his charges.

North Carolina got rid of the "No Match No Vote" law last year, thanks to NC Verified Voting's efforts. See Making Sure It Counts Thanks to that change, when a voter doesn't match, they are still registered and will get a regular ballot if they show some sort of ID at the polling place.

North Carolina has registered nearly 700,000 people this year, plus we have same day registration during early voting. See NC voter registrations pour in as deadline looms

The NY Times should be investigating the Social Security Dept who will be shutting their database down right in the middle of voter registration:

See Bad timing or last ditch effort to supress new voters?
A recent alert by the Social Security Administration announces that the agency plans to shut down its databases for maintenance from October 11 through October 13. How will this hurt new voters? Election officials would lose 4 days of processing time needed to handle new registrants. Elections staff are already overworked at this time of the year and this is another straw on the camel's back.

Let the NY Times investigate that. And make a phone call or two when you write a story.

Late evening update: Ian Urbina has a follow up story where he actually hears from Gary Bartlett, Director of the NC State Board of Elections. You'd never think that 3 paragraphs are about North Carolina, considering the title:

Colorado to Review How It Purges Voters' Names
By IAN URBINA

...In North Carolina, Gary Bartlett, director of the Board of Elections, said his state was handling voter registrations properly, despite concerns raised by the Social Security Administration. Mr. Bartlett said North Carolina officials were checking the validity of both a driver’s license and a Social Security number if the registrant provides both, which he believes is allowed under federal law.

Social Security officials disagreed. They said that only people without a driver’s license or other form of state identification were allowed to be checked against the federal database, and that this did not include people who put down both numbers.

Asked about the Social Security Administration’s interpretation of the law, Mr. Bartlett said he planned to streamline the process after this year’s election so that his state would not run a Social Security check if the driver’s license alone validated the registrant’s identity.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 10, 2008, on page A22 of the New York edition