RALEIGH — North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Sam Hayes has requested that the Division of Motor Vehicles provide full Social Security numbers of registered voters who are DMV customers as part of the Board’s efforts to clean up voter rolls.
In a letter dated Sept. 29, N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) Commissioner Paul Tine, Hayes cited Section 303 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which mandates data-sharing between election officials and motor vehicle agencies with regard to the need to maintain voter roll integrity for the state’s 7.6 million registered voters.
Hayes’ request is aimed at improving voter roll accuracy by removing ineligible individuals, such as non-U.S. citizens, deceased persons, felons, and those with duplicate registrations.
“I write today to request that the NCDMV provide certain data to the State Board to help us maintain the most accurate voter rolls possible for the citizens of this state,” wrote Hayes. “Specifically, I ask that the NCDMV engage in a more robust data-sharing and matching program with election officials, to include providing full Social Security numbers for registered voters who are also NCDMV customers.”
Hayes also mentioned concerns raised by U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson, who, in a letter to Tine dated July 10, highlighted instances of non-citizen voter registrations at DMV offices.
“As you know, Russ Ferguson, the United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, shared concerns and evidence that DMV examiners had mistakenly processed voter registrations for non-citizens as recently as 2024,” wrote Hayes. As the state’s chief election official, I share these concerns and ask that your agency provide the data necessary to ensure our voter rolls are free of non-U.S. citizens and remain as accurate and up to date as possible.”
Ferguson’s letter to Tine outlined a “common theme” of automatic registrations for aliens by the NCDMV as noted by the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have encountered a number of ineligible individuals who have registered to vote at the DMV but have no knowledge of doing so. Consistently, they report they were simply presented a form to sign by a DMV employee,” Ferguson wrote in his letter to Tine. “That form is presented in English, even though many of these individuals do not speak sufficient English. Most of them recalled signing an electronic block at the DMV, but believed it was part of the process to obtain a driver’s license.”
Ferguson also cited an interview of a “DMV examiner” who blamed the error in registering an illegal alien to vote on a “system glitch.” Ferguson followed up with an email to Tine on July 25, which listed five individuals his office had determined were not eligible to vote. The NCDMV provided North State Journal with the email but the names were redacted.
In a response letter to Ferguson dated Aug. 28, Tine said it found errors but no “systemic” issues.
“Our investigation did not reveal any systemic issues within our processes. However, we did identify one area for improvement. Specifically, we found two instances where errors occurred due to examiner oversight,” wrote Tine. “In both cases, the examiners mistakenly marked the applicants as U.S. citizens, which bypassed the necessary legal presence questions and allowed voter registration.”
“To address this, we have implemented a new process to notify the Board of Elections Liaison immediately upon identifying such errors,” Time wrote. “This will ensure that any future occurrences are promptly reported and rectified.”
As of Oct. 10, Tine had not yet responded to Hayes’ letter.
In an email response to an inquiry by North State Journal, an NCDMV spokesperson wrote, “We take our role in the voter registration process seriously and will continue to assist the State Board of Elections in meeting their mission.”
The spokesperson also said that the NCDMV’s responsibility is “enabling customers to apply to register to vote, but the local boards of election process the applications.” Additionally, the spokesperson addressed the ineligible voters raised by Ferguson by noting the NCDMV conducts “more than 2 million transactions every year, so the 5 individuals described in the letters represent a very small set of transactions.”
North State Journal asked the NCSBE if they could determine whether the five individuals mentioned have voted in an election.
“We recently became aware of this situation, and we are working to get additional information on these individuals so we can verify their registration status and voter history,” an NCSBE spokesperson said in an email response.
