President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice strikes a decisive blow against potential voter fraud in one American state, demanding immediate action on hundreds of thousands of questionable registrations.
The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi targets critical flaws in North Carolina’s voter verification system that may have already impacted election outcomes, forcing accountability where Democrats have stonewalled.
The administration’s DOJ filed a lawsuit against North Carolina, challenging the state’s failure to maintain accurate voter registration records as required by federal law.
The legal action, spearheaded by AG Bondi, accuses the state of violating the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by using a voter registration form that does not properly verify voter identities.
The DOJ is demanding that state officials take immediate steps to contact voters with missing identification information or remove them from the rolls within 30 days.
At the heart of the lawsuit is North Carolina’s failure to collect required identifying information, such as driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers, from as many as 250,000 registered voters.
This glaring oversight creates a significant vulnerability to voter fraud and undermines election integrity in a key battleground state.
The action comes after a contentious 2024 election in which GOP Jefferson Griffin narrowly lost a state Supreme Court seat to Democrat Allison Riggs by just 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast.
Court documents revealed that a previous Democrat-majority election board acknowledged these serious HAVA compliance issues in 2023 but deliberately chose not to contact affected voters before the 2024 elections.
According to the lawsuit, the board planned to collect the missing identification information ” ad hoc” at polling places—a haphazard approach that failed to meet federal standards.
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately and without fraud,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
She added, “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”
In spite of repeated warnings and previous legal challenges from Republican candidates and the GOP, state officials have slacked off on fixing these known problems.
The lawsuit noted that while North Carolina has taken some corrective actions, they have “only taken limited actions to prevent future violations from reoccurring.”
The state board’s composition changed in 2024, shifting from a Democrat to a Republican majority, but the case indicates far more aggressive measures are needed to protect election integrity.
Moreover, the urgency of the DOJ’s action is underscored by the controversial outcome of the North Carolina Supreme Court race, where Republican Jefferson Griffin challenged approximately 60,000 ballots over missing identifying numbers.
State appeals courts criticized the election board’s handling of the registration issues.
Still, they ultimately ruled that the challenged ballots should remain in the final tally, cementing Democrat Allison Riggs’s victory by a razor-thin margin that improperly registered voters could have easily swung.
With local elections set to begin in September, the Trump administration’s lawsuit comes at a critical juncture for protecting future electoral integrity.
Sam Hayes, the newly appointed Executive Director of the state’s election board, acknowledged the problems, stating:
“The failure to collect the information required by HAVA has been well documented. Rest assured that I am committed to bringing North Carolina into compliance with federal law.”
The question remains whether this commitment will translate into the decisive action needed to prevent another tainted election.
The suit also coincides with a separate state legal battle over control of North Carolina’s elections board, with the GOP-led legislature attempting to shift power from the Democrat governor to a Republican state auditor.
Ultimately, this multi-pronged approach reflects the Trump administration’s comprehensive strategy to secure election integrity nationwide while addressing local vulnerabilities that could undermine Americans’ confidence in their electoral system.
