RALEIGH — The N.C. State Board of Elections is mailing letters this week to 1,599 registered voters whom a federal citizenship database flagged as potential noncitizens, Carolina Journal reported.
State elections spokesman Jason Tyson told the Raleigh-based news outlet on Friday that the letters will tell recipients how to verify their citizenship, or how to ask to be removed from the voter rolls if they registered by mistake.
The flag does not mean a person is a noncitizen. The State Board says no one will be taken off the rolls automatically.
“We wish to reiterate that no voters will be automatically removed as a result of any voter list maintenance we do utilizing the database,” Executive Director Sam Hayes said in a Sept. 25 statement.
Where the 1,599 came from
The names came out of the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, which the Department of Homeland Security runs to check immigration and citizenship status. In April, the State Board said it would run every registered voter’s name, date of birth and last four Social Security digits through SAVE under an agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to an April 16 board announcement.
On July 16, DHS released results showing SAVE had identified 1,599 potential non-U.S. citizens on North Carolina’s voter rolls. Hayes said the next day that the group was “an extremely small percentage of the 7.8 million registered voters in our state,” and that “one ineligible registrant is still one too many,” according to his July 17 statement. He promised due process before any removal.
Under the board’s published process, staff first check whether a flagged voter ever showed proof of citizenship to a government office, such as a U.S. passport used as voter ID or a document shown at the DMV. Voters who can’t be cleared that way get a chance to update their citizenship information before any removal.
What the letter asks
Tyson told NC Newsline on Friday that the final letter was not ready. He said it would ask people to confirm their citizenship by email, fax, mail or in person and would include instructions for anyone registered by mistake who wants off the rolls. He also told NC Newsline that someone who gets a letter and shows up to vote without having sent proof would typically not be turned away, and that “the process would happen on the backend.”
Federal law bars systematic voter-roll removals in the 90 days before a federal election. Tyson told NC Newsline the letters are a voluntary, individual process, not a systematic purge. Carolina Journal reported that a removal requested by the registrant would not violate that ban.
The court fight
On Sept. 25, the U.S. Supreme Court paused a June 22 order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had blocked the modified SAVE system, according to the court’s docket. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented. The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center brought the challenge, according to Carolina Journal.
The State Board’s permanent rules for removing noncitizens were approved by the Rules Review Commission on May 28. As of publication, the board’s rulemaking page still lists them as subject to legislative review and not yet in effect. The tentative agenda for the board’s Thursday, Oct. 8 meeting does not list the SAVE review.
What it means here
Neither the State Board nor Carolina Journal has released a county-by-county breakdown. It is not known how many, if any, of the 1,599 are registered in Catawba County.
The deadline to register for the Nov. 3 general election is 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, according to the State Board. People who miss it can register and vote at the same time during early voting, Oct. 15–31, with proof of where they live and an acceptable photo ID. Voters can check their registration and see a sample ballot with the State Board’s Voter Search tool. Contact information for the Catawba County Board of Elections is on the State Board’s county board lookup.
Earlier coverage: Making sense of two SAVEs and very few noncitizens voting in NC · The NC elections rules that aren’t quite rules yet
Source note
As of publication. The letter mailing and Tyson’s description of it: Carolina Journal, “NCSBE to contact 1,599 potential noncitizens on voter rolls,” by Theresa Opeka, Oct. 5, 2026; and NC Newsline, by Lynn Bonner, Oct. 2, 2026. The State Board had not posted its own announcement of the mailing, and Catawba First News has not seen the letter. The 1,599 figure, the 7.8 million registered voters and the review process: State Board statements of July 17 and Sept. 25, its April 16 announcement and its voter rolls FAQ. Supreme Court action: docket 26A308, Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters. Rule status: State Board rulemaking page. Registration deadline and early voting dates: State Board, Oct. 2, 2026. No official county-level count was found.
