QUESTION: Do people who resister to vote need to present identification like they do when they later go to the polls?
ANSWER: People who register to vote might not literally be “carded” by local elections officials. But they must still proffer a valid form of identification in order to have their names added to the state’s voter rolls.
Since December of 2023, North Carolina state law has obligated anyone who signs up to vote to provide either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number on their registration application. According to Alamance County’s election director Dawn Hurdle, this number is ultimately checked against the name and date of birth on the application to confirm the would-be voter’s identity.
“We’re required to validate that before we process your voter registration application,” Hurdle went on to recall in an interview. “If it doesn’t validate, we send them a letter, and they aren’t registered until they’re validated.”
In addition to one of these two identification numbers, the state’s standard voter registration form also asks for the applicant’s full name, date of birth, and residential address. The state’s standard registration form includes a box that applicants can check if they don’t have social security numbers or driver’s licenses – although in that case they must attach a copy of some other document with their name and address, which may include another photo I.D., a utility bill, or a bank statement.
This identification requirement differs somewhat from North Carolina’s much discussed voter I.D. mandate, which demands that voters present an acceptable form of photo I.D. whenever they physically show up at the polls. This requirement allows poll workers to match the photo on the I.D. against the person standing before them, and it theoretically prevents potential fraudsters from passing themselves off as people who already appear on the state’s voter rolls.
The state’s safeguards are necessarily different for people who aren’t yet entered in the database of registered voters. For these individuals, elections officials are more interested in matching names with identification numbers than they are with a person’s appearance. In any event, the identification requirement is still a fairly new twist to the registration process in North Carolina.
“In the past,” Hurdle elaborated, “it said on the voter registration form that it was optional to list the last four of your social or your driver’s license. Now it’s required.
“There are still some old forms floating around that might not show it’s required,” she added. “But the new ones do show it, and we have to validate it either way.”
THE PUBLIC ASKS: Have a question about a matter of public record? Call The Alamance News at (336) 228-7851; write to the newspaper at P.O. Box 431, Graham, NC 27253; or e-mail alamancenews@mail.com.
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