RALEIGH — President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week aimed at election integrity that, in part, enforces citizenship requirements for voting in U.S. elections.
Trump’s order requires proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration, including acceptable forms of identification like passports, military IDs and government-issued photo IDs. The Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies are directed to create systems to ensure proper registrations, and the Election Assistance Commission is tasked with modifying its national voter registration form to include citizenship verification.
The order, issued on March 25, also focuses on key issues such as ensuring votes are cast and received only by Election Day, improving voter registration list accuracy and reducing potential fraud in the electoral process.
Trump’s order prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions or expenditures in federal, state or local elections.
Election Day would be the final deadline for receipt of all ballots, with a few specific exceptions for military and overseas voters, per the order.
Additionally, a provision also calls for the use of voting systems that produce voter-verifiable paper records, restricts the use of barcodes in vote counting and institutes equipment reviews that might result in the potential recertification of voting equipment.
In a related move, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced it had issued records requests to 48 states and Washington, D.C., regarding voter registration list maintenance.
“The RNC is once again taking action to make our elections more secure,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a press release.
“Voters have a right to know that their states are properly maintaining voter rolls and quickly acting to clean voter registration lists by removing ineligible voters,” said Whatley. “If states unlawfully block our requests, or if we discover that states have failed to accurately maintain their voter rolls, the RNC stands ready to act.”
The records requested by the RNC include “how each state removes voters that have died, changed addresses, moved out of state, are criminals, or are non-citizens.”
North Dakota and Maryland were the two states that the RNC did not send a records request.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) told North State Journal it received the RNC’s request on March 25 and provided a copy.
The RNC’s request to the NCSBE asked for 16 items for the time frame spanning March 2023 through the date the response is supplied.
Items in the request include detailed records about voter removals across multiple categories, such as death, relocation, criminal convictions, noncitizenship, duplicate registrations and administrative errors.
The request seeks lists of voters sent address confirmation notices, inactive voters and voter registration cancellation notices. Notably, the request seeks names, voter ID numbers, addresses, dates of birth, age and gender, with specific instructions to not redact or exclude any identifying details in the records.
Additionally, the RNC wants records of interagency communications about voter status with various state and federal agencies, including the Department of Health, Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security Administration, U.S. Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security.
It’s not the first time the RNC has sought voter maintenance data from North Carolina officials.
Last year, the RNC and North Carolina Republican Party sued the NCSBE over alleged noncompliance with a state law requiring election officials to conduct voter list maintenance based on data that includes noncitizens who sought to be excused from jury duty.
