While North Carolina is still dealing with the fallout from registration problems in the 2024 election, county election boards have started a process that will remove hundreds of thousands of registrations from voter rolls.
That is a good thing.
Regular List Maintenance Does Not Catch all Problematic Registrations
Voters regularly become ineligible to vote because they have moved out of the county or state, been convicted of a felon, or died. Without a system for removing those registrations, voter rolls will become bloated with ineligible voters, which leads to a host of ills.
County election boards remove registrations from the voter rolls almost every week. The North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) notes that regular voter roll list maintenance is important “because it ensures ineligible voters are not included on poll books, reduces the possibility for poll worker error and decreases opportunities for fraud.”
The National Conference of State Legislatures also stresses how list maintenance improves voting by:
- Protecting against fraud by ensuring only eligible electors can cast a ballot.
- Informing Election Day planning by helping accurately budget for ballots, voting machines, polling places and poll workers.
- Minimizing wait times at the polls.
- Simplifying postelection procedures by reducing the number of provisional ballots cast.
However, regular list maintenance does not catch all those who are not eligible to vote, and election officials need a system to remove ineligible registrations they did not catch through regular list maintenance.
Biennial List Maintenance Catches More Ineligible Registrations
To compensate for deficiencies in regular list maintenance, North Carolina law (GS 163-82.14(d)(2)) provides a way to remove registrations of those who have not had any contact with election officials for four federal election cycles by “voting, attempting to vote, signing a petition, running for office, completing a voter registration form, etc.”
It is a two-part process. First, any voter who has not contacted the county board of elections for two congressional elections (four years) is put on an inactive voter list. Inactive voters are still registered to vote. If they wish to vote, they will be given a ballot and put back on the active voter list.
Once a registration is on the inactive list, it is subject to removal after two more congressional election cycles:
Once a registered voter’s status becomes Inactive, if the voter remains Inactive for an additional
two statewide general elections, then following that second general election, the voter will be
removed from the list of registered voters.
The Impact of Biennial List Maintenance on Voting
As seen on the John Locke Foundation’s Voter Registration Changes, 92 of North Carolina’s 100 counties conducted biennial list maintenance between January 5 and 19. The state’s total number of registrations declined by 397,331 over that period (that net number includes new registrations and removals through regular list maintenance).
As seen in the chart below, the removal of several hundred thousand registrations every two years contrasts with North Carolina’s general uptick in registrations as the state grows, creating a sawtooth pattern in total registrations over time.
The major parties are not being equally affected by the drop in registrations. Between January 5 and 19, there was a net decline of 139,246 Democrats and 90,433 Republicans. There was also a net decline of 164,139 unaffiliated registrations. If current registration trends hold, Republicans will overtake Democrats in North Carolina late this year or in early 2026.
So, how big will the impact of this year’s biennial list maintenance be on future elections?
Almost zero.
Registrants who are removed from voter rolls through biennial list maintenance have not been voting for years. Formally removing them does not change that. The relatively high number of Democratic removals is an indication of the decline in support they have already suffered, not a sign of future decline.
While some on the left claim that list maintenance is a form of voter suppression, the reality is that there are few to no voters to suppress. Removing registration through list maintenance is simply an affirmation that those voters are already gone.
