Why Registration Repair Matters
It’s no accident. As their approval ratings plummet, GOP-led governments – both in Washington and right here in North Carolina – are enacting laws that make it harder for people to vote.
Every week it becomes clearer to more Americans that Republicans in charge are not acting in our best interests. Instead, they are raising prices, dismantling safety nets that protect us, and disabling public institutions we depend on so that they can cut taxes for corporations and the richest individuals, giving them free rein to act in their own corporate and stockholder interests.
Efforts to distract the electorate with cultural issues aren’t sufficient; the only way they see to assure continuing control is to make it harder for more people to vote in the upcoming 2026 elections. History shows this to be a tried-and-true American policy, developed and honed in the post-Civil War South to keep formerly enslaved African Americans from exercising their right to vote. Where literacy tests and poll taxes once did the job, now we have laws that require voter IDs, shorten early voting times, and make it more difficult for community groups to help folks register to vote.
While many of the anti-democratic strategies used today continue to focus on African American voters, young unaffiliated voters have also been targeted. Just look at the strategy dreamed up by supporters of Judge Jefferson Griffin in North Carolina to throw out enough votes for State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs to overturn the election and give her seat on the court to Griffin.
Their plan was to declare illegal over 60,000 votes cast by individuals who had registered to vote at a time when voter registration forms did not require either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number to prove their identity. Although the strategy was not successful in this case, it did take 6 months of hard work curing ballots and millions of dollars fighting court cases before Justice Riggs was able to legally retain her seat.
Once again, thanks to a case brought by the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice, that strategy has been renewed, requiring our State Board of Elections to develop a plan to collect missing data for 100,000 North Carolina voters. Unless these voters can repair their registration information, their ability to vote in 2026 will be threatened. This is the source of the registration repair effort we are asking you to join.
An analysis of this disenfranchisement effort , conducted by the News and Observer, found “an outsize impact on young voters and those unaffiliated with any political party.” While North Carolinians under 36 make up less than 30% of registered voters, they account for over 55% of those on the targeted list. Given the preponderance of young voters on the list, it’s not surprising that 63% are unaffiliated. Only 14% of those on the list are Republicans, even though Republicans make up 30% of statewide voters. The rest are Democrats. In addition, whereas 64% of North Carolina voters are White, only 19% of voters on the list are White. From a Republican point of view, it makes sense to disenfranchise voters most likely to be negatively impacted by party policies and less likely to vote GOP.
Younger voters want change for the better. They don’t want to struggle in low paying jobs that don’t cover the rent. They don’t want a future in which they must forgo graduate or professional degrees, thanks to the Trump administration’s elimination of GradPLUS loans. They want a future in which home ownership will someday be within their reach.
Instead, young North Carolinians worry about losing their healthcare due to the cancellation of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s promise of big changes may have enticed them to vote Republican once, but they don’t like the big changes he has brought. We need to make sure these young voters continue to be part of the electorate and that they are not discouraged by the Republican effort to count them out. By joining the effort to reach out to those who need to repair their registrations, we can make sure that every voter’s voice is heard.
When all of us are able to vote, we can elect Representatives and Senators here in North Carolina and in Washington who will stand strong and work for policies and priorities that make our lives better – like fully funded public schools and universities, universal access to quality, affordable health care, pollution free water and air, and good jobs at a living wage.
We deserve nothing less. Let’s make sure that everyone who is registered to vote can vote. Twenty thousand registrations have already been corrected. Please sign on to the North Carolina Democratic Party’s effort to repair the 80,000 remaining registrations across the state.
