More Ballot Stuffing

Earlier this month, those same officials sampled 1,600 names from their overall list of 10,000 voters who were identified as "legally present" by the DMV (i.e., non-citizens who may or may not have become citizens and obtained voting rights since getting drivers' licenses). They cross-checked the names against a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database, known as SAVE, and found that 6% of the 1,600 registered voters they sampled are not eligible to vote. The work by the SBOE and DMV to verify the 10,000 names was in the works already, according to Lawson, but it also dug deeper after NC FIRE and the Voter Integrity Project separately asked about the possibility that DACA immigrants may be on the voter rolls. In the U.S., more than 550,000 younger immigrants, raised mostly in the U.S. but who did not have authorization to be in the country, have qualified for DACA, according to August statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. They paid a $465 fee to USCIS plus about $500 to $1,000 in attorney fees to apply for the program, which was implemented by President Barack Obama’s administration two years ago on Aug. 15, 2012. In North Carolina, the DACA program allows recipients to get a Social Security card, work permit and driver’s license. In the state, with a total population of about 9.5 million people, nearly 20,000 have received approval for DACA, according to the latest USCIS statistics, through March 31. About 15,000 DACA licenses have been issued, according to the latest statistics provided by DMV officials. They have lawful presence in the U.S. but have no pathway to citizenship.