SerpApi.Org
(The Center Square) – Each of the 1,599 noncitizens registered to vote in North Carolina will be subject to state and federal law, and afforded due process prior to potential removal, says the executive director of the State Board of Elections.
Homeland Security on Friday, in conjunction with a Thursday presidential address to the nation, released voter registration information. The stunning summary of just four states having more than a quarter-million illegally registered voters sent a number of states scrambling to compliance.
“One ineligible registrant is still one too many,” said Sam Hayes, executive director for the state elections board. “Therefore, we are developing a process by which state board and county boards of elections records, as well as other resources, will be researched for evidence that an identified registrant is eligible to vote. If that research is inconclusive, then the state board will contact the registrant regarding their citizenship status.”
Hayes said the process will be transparent.
Homeland Security said SAVE – known also as the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program – identified the illegal registrations from among North Carolina’s more than 7.8 million registrations. California had 190,832, New Jersey had 35,152, Nevada had 15,903, and Pennsylvania had 14,576.
“Election security is national security,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a Friday briefing. “As President Trump announced last night, DHS has identified over 250,000 potential noncitizens illegally registered to vote in just four U.S. states. Only Americans should be electing American leaders."
All votes matter, and North Carolina has recent examples to prove it.
Canadian Denis Bouchard was sentenced to prison earlier this year. He lived in the United States since the 1960s and never became a citizen, prosecutors said. Yet, he checked a box saying he was a United States citizen on registration applications and ballots.
Voting records indicate participation in nine federal elections between 2004 and 2024 in two coastal counties of southeastern North Carolina.
Only 23 votes separated Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page and 13th-term Sen. Phil Berger in a March primary election. In 2020, only 401 votes from nearly 5.4 million cast separated Justice Paul Newby and Cheri Beasley in the state Supreme Court chief justice race.
And in a seat on the bench of the state Supreme Court, only 434 votes from more than 5.5 million cast separated Justices Allison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin.
In a news conference Friday, Mullin said the findings released are in no way a rehash of 2020 election claims.
“This is just exposing what took place, and to make sure it never happens again,” he said. “And there’s some really easy steps that can be taken to secure our elections. And it shouldn’t be a partisan issue. This should be something that every American, regardless if you’re a Republican, you’re a Democrat, you’re an independent, you’re a Libertarian, regardless if you live in a blue state or you live in a red state, everybody should know that their vote counts.”
