(Jan. 27, 2026) — The North Carolina State Board of Elections has proposed several rules establishing a challenge process for voters deemed “presumptive non-citizens,” and has opened a public comment period from January 15 to March 16, 2026. While the exact process for identifying challenged voters is not yet public, the State Board of Elections has indicated that county boards of elections will bring and hear challenges to voters based upon information received from the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.
As recently pointed out by SCSJ and partner Fair Elections Center, recent changes to the SAVE system have introduced highly unreliable citizenship information and resulted in other states having eligible voters’ citizenship wrongly questioned. In a December 16, 2025, letter, SCSJ and Fair Elections Center urged the North Carolina State Board of Elections to exercise extreme caution in using the federal SAVE system for voter roll maintenance, and warned that those recent changes make it more likely to wrongly flag eligible U.S. citizens as noncitizens — potentially impacting their ability to vote.
On January 27, 2026, SCSJ, FEC, and partners League of Women Voters of North Carolina and Common Cause North Carolina urged the North Carolina State Board of Elections to adopt revisions to the Proposed Rules to protect eligible voters at risk of being removed during the challenge process.
Read the public comment on proposed non-citizen list maintenance rules here.
Talking Points: Protecting Eligible Voters While Ensuring Accurate Voter Rolls
These principles are essential to ensuring that any voter eligibility review process in North Carolina protects both election integrity and the fundamental right to vote. Safeguards must be in place to prevent erroneous removals, ensure compliance with federal law, and provide voters with clear notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond. The following talking points outline key protections that should guide the State Board’s approach:
- The State Board must ensure they use only reliable information before challenging any voter as a “presumptive noncitizen.” The federal SAVE system has documented issues with reliability, especially for naturalized citizens. Other states using SAVE have erroneously challenged and removed individuals from their voter rolls when, in fact, those voters were citizens eligible to vote. North Carolina should not repeat those mistakes.
- No voters should be systematically removed from the voter rolls within 90 days of any election. The National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from systematically removing voters (e.g., based on large database information matching) within 90 days before an election. This 90-day prohibition recognizes that large-scale, systematic removals can lead to erroneous removals of eligible voters, and that removing voters in the period before an election makes it difficult for them to re-register and cast a ballot. North Carolina should make clear these proposed non-citizen list maintenance procedures will not result in removals shortly before elections.
- Any process must accommodate voters with name changes or difficulty getting proof of citizenship. Millions of North Carolinians have changed their name and thus have proof of citizenship that might not match their current voter registration. Additional voters, such as derived citizens, may not have easy access to proof of citizenship documentation, which is expensive and can take months to get. Any process must accommodate these voters to ensure that eligible voters with these issues are not erroneously removed and prevented from voting.
- Voters should be given advance and clear notice during the hearing process. The proposed rules should be modified to provide more advance notice, in plain language and in a variety of languages, to voters who are challenged to ensure they can effectively navigate this process. This will reduce the likelihood that eligible voters who are challenged will be removed without having a chance to verify their citizenship.
- Voters should only be removed if there is independent confirmation they are not currently a citizen. Any challenged based solely on a match to the federal SAVE system should not be sustained without independent confirmation that voter is not a citizen. This is especially important where there is no indication the voter has received notice of the challenge process and may not know their voter registration is at risk.