This article was updated Friday at 12:15 pm with quotes from state elections officials.
NC Newsline - Yellow signs in Spanish warning people that voting by noncitizens is illegal are planted outside early voting locations around the state.
Jim Womack, president of the conservative North Carolina Election Integrity Team, said his group purchased just under 1,000 signs.
Womack said in an interview they’re “protecting noncitizens from committing crimes.”
But voting rights groups called the signs voter intimidation. More than two dozen organizations, including Forward Justice, Common Cause North Carolina, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, told state Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell in a letter this week that the signs must be removed.
“Based on the circumstances outlined below, this signage threatens to chill the fundamental right to vote, constitutes unlawful voter intimidation, and must be removed from North Carolina polling locations,” the letter says.
Pictures of signs accompanying the advocacy groups’ letter show the yellow NCEIT signs outside Durham, Orange, Mecklenburg, and Pitt County early voting sites. They stand near other election signs outside the voting site electioneering boundaries.
The sign outside the Durham County Main Library was in place on Wednesday and Thursday, though it was covered by a white bag for part of that time.
Asked Tuesday whether the state Board could order the removal of signs that contain accurate information, Board spokesman Pat Gannon wrote, “In North Carolina, we welcome all eligible voters to cast their ballot in this important general election, no matter what language they speak.
“The State Board of Elections reminds voters that you are eligible to vote in your county if you are a United States citizen and North Carolina resident, at least 18 years old on Election Day, and you’re not serving a felony sentence. Eligible individuals can register to vote at any early voting site in their county. You can find early voting sites and schedules through the Early Voting Site Search tool on the State Board’s website.”
State elections officials made it clear during a news conference Friday morning that the yellow signs can stay up.
“We have a fine line that we have to walk and that’s between accurate information, free speech, electioneering, and whether in any of that there’s voter intimidation or a restriction on First Amendment rights,” said State Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell.
Paul Cox, one of the Board’s lawyers, said the warning signs are unnecessary because polling sites have voting rules posted. Moreover, voters sign forms affirming that they are citizens before they are handed ballots.
“Even unnecessary signs, when they are accurately commuting the law, absent some other compelling evidence that they’re being discriminatory or intimidating, then there’s no real basis for an election official to remove them,” Cox said.
It is illegal for noncitizens to register to vote. Voter registration applications ask if filers are citizens. It’s a felony to say on a voter registration application that you’re a citizen when you’re not.
Very few noncitizens have been found on North Carolina voter rolls.
The state Board of Elections said in September it found possibly nine noncitizens registered to vote out of 7.7 million registrants, WRAL reported.
But Republicans have homed in on noncitizen voting as an election year issue. The state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee have sued the state Board of Elections several times this year, saying state practices allow noncitizens to stay on the voter rolls, which the state Board of Elections has denied.
And a CBS News report on Womack’s group this week included video of him telling volunteers that people with “Hispanic-sounding last names” who registered within 90 days of the election are suspicious voters.
NCEIT is part of Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network. Mitchell tried to help former President Donald Trump stop Georgia from certifying the 2020 election. She was not charged.
Womack said in an interview this week that volunteers aren’t only looking for Hispanic voters. They’re also looking for people who have died, committed felonies, or have moved, he said.
“We’re flagging anyone who is a suspicious voter.”
In addition to removing the signs, the civil rights groups want the State Board to “put out information in Spanish to let monolingual Spanish speakers know that they are safe to vote in North Carolina and that they have the right to immediately report any intimidating behavior at polling sites.”
