'Biggest concern': Trump DOJ ramps up voter suppression efforts in key swing state
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the power of federal judges by restricting their ability to grant broad legal relief in cases as the justices acted in a legal fight over President Donald Trump's bid to limit birthright citizenship, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
In contrast to its deep red neighbor South Carolina, North Carolina is very much a swing state. President Donald Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2024, yet the state has had two Democratic governors in a row: two-term Roy Cooper, and now, Josh Stein.
But according to Salon's Tatyana Tandanpolie, North Carolina Democrats fear that MAGA Republicans — including those at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — are ramping up their voter suppression efforts in the key battleground state.
In an article published on July 1, Tandanpolie explains, "Last month, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina Board of Elections, accusing it of failing to maintain accurate voter lists in compliance with the 2004 Help America Vote Act, which requires all eligible voters to provide the last four digits of their Social Security numbers or their license numbers in order to register to vote. The suit sought to have a court compel the board to devise a plan to correct the incomplete registrations of more than 200,000 registered voters."
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One of the North Carolina voters who is expressing her frustration is 68-year-old Mary Kay Heling, whose voter registration, according to Tandanpolie, has been "called into question."
The frustrated Raleigh resident told Salon, "We're in the books as registered. We bring our ID, we vote. And it's not good enough? So who's to say anybody's vote is safe? Will all these people being challenged be notified? That's my biggest concern. And will they just give up because it's constant, that we constantly feel like this is being challenged, or will they fight back? We don't know."
Tandanpolie notes that "critics of" the Trump DOJ lawsuit "argue that fears of fraudulent ballots are more imagined than voter fraud is real."
"The requirement that North Carolinians present photo ID at the precinct when they vote in person or provide identification numbers to request an absentee ballot is one such election integrity protection," Tandanpolie reports. "Still, early last week, the North Carolina Board of Elections approved a three-part plan to rectify any incomplete voter registrations with a tentative agreement that the DOJ will drop the suit if the board carries out its plan."
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The Salon reporter adds, "Under the plan, the board will mail two notices to each affected voter requesting the missing identification information. Some 98,000 voters whose records lack the information will need to respond to the mailings or will have to vote provisionally until they update their records."
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Tatyana Tandanpolie's full article for Salon is available at this link.
