Administrative Watch: Putting Voters on ICE
In another important election-related story last week, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) issued sweeping subpoenas for millions of confidential voter records from 44 North Carolina counties and the North Carolina state elections board.
This led shocked observers to ask why: Why is ICE attempting a massive and unprecedented fishing expedition into voter records less than 40 days before voting begins in critical midterm elections? Is the agency following a Trump directive to delve into non-existent voter fraud? Or, even worse, is it seeking to disrupt the voting process and intimidate legal voters from going to the polls?
After significant public outcry and national attention, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which filed the subpoenas, agreed to postpone the deadline for producing these records to next January, so as not to overburden elections officials during this busy time. But the state elections board unanimously moved to oppose the requests in court, to prevent them from being disclosed at all.
Wayne Goodwin, chair of the state Democratic Party, called the requests from ICE “an attempted act of widespread voter suppression” aimed in particular at voters of color. Tomas Lopez of Democracy North Carolina termed the subpoenas “outrageous,” and commended the state elections board for putting up a fight.
NCLCV and other citizen conservation groups are working hard to improve voter turnout in these midterm elections that will impact the direction of environmental law and policy in North Carolina for years to come. Any effort to suppress voting works directly contrary to that goal.
