North Carolinas discovery of 34,000 dead people on its has sparked renewed calls for voter roll cleanup measures, including increased pressure on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
After a state election official said the number of dead people found on North Carolinas voter rolls was “higher than we anticipated,” Republican Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina called for immediate action to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, commonly known as the .
“North Carolina confirms 34,000 deceased individuals on our voter rolls,” he wrote in an X post. “This isnt a mistakeâits a failure. Election integrity is non-negotiable. Fix it now. Pass the SAVE America Act!”
This discovery has also prompted questions about how many other states have deceased voters still on their rolls. Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project Action, said he is especially concerned about blue states he believes have been refusing “commonsense” measures to clean up voter rolls.
Earlier this month, the State Board of Elections submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state’s voter registration list. Following a comprehensive data comparison with the federal database, the elections board identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state’s voter rolls.
Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release after the discovery, “While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated.”
“The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible,” he continued. “Now, we must roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work to act of verifying that every person registered to vote in North Carolina is eligible. Our team, along with our state and federal [partners] will do whats necessary to meet this responsibility.”
The state board said it will work with county boards of elections to remove the deceased individuals from the voter rolls in accordance with state and federal law.Â
While North Carolina is collaborating with the federal government and taking steps to clean up its rolls, Snead expressed concern that are not doing the same.
“Voter list maintenance takes effort from state officials,” he told Fox News Digital.
He called North Carolina “another example of a state doing the work to root out bad registrations using federal records like the SAVE system.”
“But too many Democrat-controlled states are refusing to do the commonsense work of cleaning up bloated voter rolls or stopping ineligible people from registering in the first place,” he said.
“That’s why it’s so important for Congressional Democrats to end their obstruction of the SAVE America Act, a commonsense, popular piece of legislation that keeps it easy to vote and makes it harder to cheat,” he added.
The SAVE America Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. It mandates states to verify voter rolls using citizenship data, remove ineligible registrants and impose civil and criminal penalties on officials who register voters without required proof.
The legislation is currently stuck in limbo in the Senate. Last week, a cohort of joined Democrats to sink a late-night attempt to attach a version of the voter ID and citizenship verification legislation to the GOPs bill funding federal immigration enforcement.
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and , R-Ky., all voted against a modified version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
President has repeatedly pushed for passage of the SAV
