Conducting a Voter Registration Drive in North Carolina

Incomplete Applications: North Carolina prohibits changing a person’s information on a voter registration form prior to delivering it to the County Board of Elections. All complete and incomplete forms must be submitted unaltered. Drives are prohibited from pre-marking party affiliation on the form unless the person receiving the form requested it. Any assistance filling out the form must be in the voter’s presence and must be at the voter’s request.

Labeling Applications: Do not place sticky notes or flags on any incomplete forms.

Logging Applications: State officials ask that drives maintain a log of which staff were responsible for which voter registration forms. Logs are requested to include the name of the person assigned to a batch and contact information to include a phone number, mailing address, and email.

Photocopying Completed Applications/Retaining Information: It is illegal in North Carolina to retain a registrant’s signature, full or partial Social Security Number, date of birth, email address submitted under the voter registration laws, or driver’s license number. Remove these before copying any application, and do not data-enter any information from the voter registration form.

Submitting Applications: The State Board of Elections indicates drives must submit forms within 5 days or by the voter registration deadline (25 days before an election), whichever comes first. Individual voters may register online with a valid NC Driver’s License No. or DMV-issued ID No., but electronic signatures from non-government entities are not accepted. SBE requests that completed forms be submitted directly to the county office. Find your county office here: vt.ncsbe.gov/BOEInfo

Applications satisfy the registration deadline if:

• If submitted by mail, they must be postmarked at least 25 days before the primary or election, except that any mailed application on which the postmark is missing or unclear is validly submitted if received in the mail not later than 20 days before the primary or election.
• If submitted in person, by fax, or emailing a scanned form, it must be received by the county board of elections by 5 p.m. (or a later time if the county board allows it) on the 25th day before the election. If the application is submitted by fax or email of a scanned document, a permanent copy of the completed, signed form must be delivered to the county board no later than 20 days before the election.