Thread: ICE demands ‘exhaustive’ voting records from North Carolina

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 / 4:12 PM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO

North Carolina challenges 'unreasonable' U.S. subpoenas for voter data

Suzannah Gonzales

(Reuters) - North Carolina’s elections board voted on Friday to challenge federal subpoenas seeking years’ worth of voter information from state and local officials, saying the timing, scope and unknown nature of the inquiry were cause for concern.

The U.S. Justice Department on Aug. 31 issued the subpoenas on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the state board and as many as 44 county elections boards in eastern North Carolina.

The demand was “overly broad, unreasonable, vague, and clearly impacts significant interests of our voters,” said Joshua Malcolm, vice chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement.

“This Board will ... not stand idly by and consent to any agency attempting to obtain records and documents that violate the principles of overreach by the federal government, as in this circumstance,” Malcolm said before Friday’s vote during a telephone meeting of the bipartisan board. A transcript of the vote was posted online by the state elections board.

Voting-rights issues have drawn heightened scrutiny across the United States in a congressional election year when Democrats are fighting to regain power in various states and at the national level.

The North Carolina board voted unanimously to authorize the state attorney general’s office to take steps to quash the subpoenas. In a Friday letter, a state assistant attorney general asked a federal prosecutor to withdraw the subpoenas immediately.

Local media said the subpoenas could be connected to a case in the district involving 19 foreign nationals charged last month with illegally voting before and on Nov. 8, 2016. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina declined to comment on what prompted the subpoenas and the vote.

The federal government is seeking documents dating back to 2010 including voter registration application information, forms that voters sign at polling places before casting ballots, records declaring U.S. citizenship and official ballots.

Complying with the subpoenas would mean producing more than 15 million documents from the state board and about 5.6 million ballots from the counties, state elections board spokesman Patrick Gannon said in an email.

“We do not know the impetus behind these subpoenas,” he said.

In a letter on Thursday, a federal prosecutor told state elections board lawyer Joshua Lawson that voters’ actual choice of candidates were not relevant to the inquiry and should be redacted as much as possible. The letter was posted online by the state elections board.

The Justice Department initially requested the documents by Sept. 25, prompting criticism from elections officials who said the demand was ill-timed as they are busy preparing for the Nov. 6 elections.

Federal authorities then said this week they were willing to postpone the deadline until January, provided the elections board vowed to preserve the subpoenaed documents.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1LN2R3

ALIPAC Activist research request.

Please help us get the following info regarding the NC State Board of Elections refusal to provide the requested data on illegal voters to the feds.

1. Which 44 counties received data requests?
2. Exactly what information "Specific language" was in in those federal requests?


Time is of the essence, please assist us with this info if you can find it.

Assistant U.S. attorney Sebastian Kielmanovich issued the subpoenas Thursday to forty-four counties in North Carolina’s federal Eastern District, including Wake County. The probe spans five years, including all “poll books, e-poll books, voting records, and/or voter authorization documents, and executed official ballots (including absentee ballots)” from August 30, 2013, through August 30, 2018. The DOJ wants the documents by September 25—three weeks before early voting begins—according to documents posted by the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.

https://www.indyweek.com/news/archiv...44-nc-counties

Yep, see that in the lead article...

Among the state records from Jan. 1, 2010 through Aug. 30, 2018 that were requested: any and all voter registration applications, federal write-in absentee ballots, federal post card applications, early voting application forms, provisional voting forms, absentee ballot request forms, all “admission or denial of non-citizen return forms,” and all voter registration cancellation or revocation forms.

While all data at our BOEs is supposed to be public record, Ivenever seen anyone request voter application forms and write-in ballots before.

A subpoena to the state elections board seeks even more information, requests documents going back to January 2010, including voter registration and early voting application forms, absentee ballot request forms, “any and all ‘admission or denial of non-citizen return forms” and records of any voter registration canceled or revoked by the board.

State Board Meetings

The Bipartisan State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement is the state agency charged with the administration of the elections process, as well as campaign finance, ethics and lobbying disclosure and compliance in North Carolina.
The State Board will meet by teleconference at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 7, in part to consider a response to subpoenas issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The public call-in number is (415) 655-0052. The code is 351-906-266. Meeting materials, including copies of the subpoenas, are here.

https://dl.ncsbe.gov/index.html?pref...cs/2018-09-07/

Counties

• Beaufort
• Bertie
• Bladen
• Brunswick
• Camden
• Carteret
• Chowan
• Columbus
• Craven
• Cumberland
• Currituck
• Dare
• Duplin
• Edgecombe
• Franklin
• Gates
• Granville
• Greene
• Halifax
• Harnett
• Hertford
• Hyde
• Johnston
• Jones
• Lenoir
• Martin
• Nash
• New Hanover
• Northampton
• Onslow
• Pamlico
• Pasquotank
• Pender
• Perquimans
• Pitt
• Robeson
• Sampson
• Tyrrell
• Vance
• Wake
• Warren
• Washington
• Wayne
• Wilson

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox was tight-lipped about the probe, saying he is “not able to discuss the details of an ongoing federal investigation.” He referred the INDY to an August 27 press release about indictments against the nineteen individuals for voting illegally.

Oftentimes, non-citizens and undocumented people are mistakenly or unknowingly registered to vote through a third-party agency helping them with immigration proceedings without fully realizing the legal ramifications, says Viridiana Martinez, director of immigrant advocacy group Alerta Migratoria. Registering to vote without actually voting is still a federal crime, she adds.

“There’s no malintent in it,” Martinez says. “I think whoever has the power—individuals, counties, or at the state level—has to say there’s no need to give out these records. They need to do that or else the state of North Carolina is being compliant in the deportations that will come.”

https://www.indyweek.com/news/archiv...44-nc-counties