New data deflates GOP claims that noncitizen voting is a problem in NC | Opinion
Republicans would have you believe that voting by noncitizens is an urgent problem in North Carolina. And in pursuit of that so-called problem, they’ve adopted protocols that risk disenfranchising legitimate voters, including comparing voter rolls to government databases and jury lists.
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Now, those protocols are exposing what we already knew to be true: noncitizen voting is not a widespread problem in North Carolina by any means.
The State Board of Elections recently announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified 1,599 potential noncitizens in North Carolina using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. That’s 0.0205% of the 7,800,000 registered voters in our state — a truly minuscule number.
The actual number may be even smaller. The SAVE database has been known to incorrectly flag voters as noncitizens, to the extent that one federal judge ruled it can no longer be used to screen voters. It’s also unclear whether any of those potentially ineligible voters ever voted in an election.
In a statement, NCSBE Executive Director Sam Hayes noted that while the potentially ineligible registrations represent a tiny portion of the electorate, “one ineligible registrant is still one too many.” That’s true, and those 1,599 registrations should be removed if further investigation finds they are, in fact, ineligible to vote.
But the truth remains that it is an exceedingly rare issue, and developing new avenues to address it could cause more problems than it solves. Faulty tools like the SAVE database could force some legitimate voters to jump through hoops to prove their citizenship or risk disenfranchisement. Elections officials are pressuring the DMV to hand over drivers’ full Social Security numbers for the purposes of verifying voter eligibility, which could have major security risks. They’ve also adopted new rules that lower the threshold for county boards of elections to throw out ballots.
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Republicans insist that these measures are necessary to restore public confidence in our elections, yet they’re the ones who have given voters reasons to distrust the process by feeding false, dangerous narratives. They’ve repeatedly stoked fears that undocumented immigrants are diluting the votes of American citizens. They’ve sued elections officials claiming that “significant numbers of non-citizens” may be registered to vote. They’ve pushed federal legislation that would go a step further than voter ID by requiring proof of citizenship to vote, something that many actual citizens do not have. Perhaps most insidiously, they’ve implied that ineligible registrations are part of a more sinister plot to influence our elections rather than simple human error, including by accusing Democrats of intentionally opening the borders to recruit undocumented immigrants to vote.
Republicans may be tempted to tout these 1,599 potentially ineligible registrations as a vindication of their claims, or use it as a pretext for future efforts to make voting harder. That would be dishonest. To continue to say our elections are at risk seems to imply that Republicans’ own efforts in North Carolina — which they often brag about — have not worked. After all, they’re the ones who have spent 15 years enacting countless rules and restrictions in the name of “election integrity.”
At the moment, the true threat to our elections is the deliberate effort to cast doubt on the results, particularly as President Donald Trump doubles down on his mythical claims of “rigged and stolen” elections ahead of the 2026 midterms. The best thing that North Carolina Republicans can do to protect our elections right now is point to this new data and admit that they are already secure.
Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten covers politics and the 2026 elections for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer.
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This story was originally published July 20, 2026 at 1:56 PM.
