Repeated questions trip up some N.C. voter registrants

Associated Press    23 October 2004

RALEIGH, N.C. - A federal law designed to reduce problems on Election Day could cause the opposite effect for some new voters on Nov. 2, county voting officials say.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires would-be voters to check two boxes on their registration forms attesting that they are U.S. citizens and are at least 18 years old. They also must indicate their citizenship on two other places on the form.

Wake County elections director Cherie Poucher said that about 1,000 residents forgot to check the boxes and have not yet responded to a letter she sent asking them to correct the problem before Election Day.

The residents will still be able to vote but will have to cast provisional ballots, Poucher said.

About 250 Wake County residents who have participating in early voting already have voted by provisional ballot in this election because of problems with their registration forms.

Provisional ballots will be counted if the county's records indicate that the person is eligible to vote and attempted to register before the Oct. 8 deadline, even if the form was filled out incorrectly.

George Gilbert, Guilford County's elections director, believes the box-checking requirement will eventually be thrown out by judges.

"Basically, you're asking someone to document that they're a citizen three times on one page," he said.

Gilbert also sent letters to would-be voters who forgot to check the boxes, but he still expected that more Guilford County residents would vote by provisional ballot this year than in the 2000 election.

Mecklenburg County hasn't seen more incomplete voter registration forms than usual this year, said Michael Dickerson, the elections director there.

Dickerson said the instructions on the form are "fairly self-explanatory."

"Would I have designed it with that? No," he said. "I would have liked to do something different, but since it's a requirement of the law, you have to have it on there."