11NOV

North Carolina's rolls held 35,000 dead

2 min read

18:10UTC

North Carolina published a new figure from DHS's expanded SAVE system: over 35,000 deceased registrants, and no count of non-citizens.

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PoliticsDeveloping

Key takeaway

North Carolina's first SAVE result found dead registrants, not non-citizens.

Sam Hayes, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said on 25 September that a recent search of SAVE (a federal citizenship-verification database) had found "over 35,000 deceased registrants" on the state's voter list⁠¹. North Carolina published the figure on the day the Supreme Court allowed DHS (the federal Homeland Security agency) to bring back the expanded version. The State Board had already reported about 34,000 deceased registrants from a SAVE check in April.

Hayes's release gives no count of non-citizens, and does not say when the search ran. It does not say any of the deceased registrants voted. The expanded SAVE draws on Social Security records, which include death data, so the result found dead registrants rather than non-citizens. "No voters will be automatically removed," Hayes said.

North Carolina counties began posting general-election ballots at the start of September, and the state now sits inside the federal window that limits systematic removals before 3 November. Any cleanup of the 35,000 names before polling day would therefore proceed record by record.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Every state keeps a list of registered voters, and people stay on it after they die until officials take them off. That is common and does not mean anyone voted in a dead person's name. SAVE is a Department of Homeland Security system that now links to Social Security records, which include deaths. North Carolina's top election official, Sam Hayes, said running the state's list through SAVE found over 35,000 dead registrants. Hayes did not say whether the 2026 search found any non-citizens. He said no voter would be taken off the list automatically.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Dead registrants pile up because death reporting and voter rolls run on separate systems. Counties remove a voter after a death notice reaches them, and notices from other states or from federal records can arrive late or not at all.

The federal law on voter rolls also sets the pace. The National Voter Registration Act lets states remove the dead at any time, but bars systematic programmes in the 90 days before a federal election. Removals for death are exempt from that bar, so Hayes's pledge of no automatic removal goes further than federal law requires for these 35,000. It does match the limit on citizenship checks that both sides of the Supreme Court's SAVE ruling described.

What could happen next?

Meaning
The first published SAVE result from a state concerns deaths, not citizenship.
Risk
If other states publish raw match counts without saying how many names were already known, the figures may be read as evidence of fraud they do not show.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In February 2012 the Pew Center on the States estimated that about 1.8 million dead people were still registered across the United States. The finding drove the creation of ERIC, a data-sharing group states use to find voters who have died or moved.

Counter-parallel: In November 2016 a federal judge ordered North Carolina counties to restore between 3,500 and 4,000 voters in three counties removed after mass challenges inside the 90-day window. The case showed that how a state acts on a list matters as much as the list.

Consensus view: Hayes called SAVE 'one of the few tools we can access' to keep non-citizens off the rolls, yet the only number he published concerned deaths. That points to the Social Security link doing most of the work, since Social Security keeps death records that state health departments may report late.

Counter-view: Justice Jackson, dissenting in the Supreme Court's SAVE ruling the same day, warned that wrongly burdening 'even a few lawful voters' outweighs any harm to the government. A death match is the least contested use of the data; a citizenship match on a naturalised voter is the most.

Key tension: Whether the 35,000 were already known to North Carolina through its own death records. The release does not say when the search ran or how many names were new.

Sources:Supreme Court of the United States·North Carolina State Board of Elections

Mentions:United States →Supreme Court of the United States →DHS →North Carolina State Board of Elections →North Carolina →Sam Hayes →SAVE System →National Voter Registration Act →Electronic Registration Information Center →Pew Center on the States →

First Reported In

Update #19 · Bulk voter citizenship checks are back

Supreme Court of the United States· 1 Oct 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Supreme Court revives DHS's SAVE checks

North Carolina published its SAVE result on the day the Supreme Court restored the modified system.

Occurred 25 Sept 2026

Read story →

This Event

North Carolina's rolls held 35,000 dead

North Carolina's latest result from the citizenship-check system counted dead registrants and gave no figure for non-citizens.

Led to

North Carolina's SAVE check flags 1,392

The same SAVE checks earlier found more than 35,000 dead registrants in North Carolina.

Occurred 13 Oct 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

University of Florida Election Lab

The lab, run by Michael McDonald, estimates about 124.3 million ballots, a raw midterm record, and turnout of about 49.4% of eligible voters, second to 2018's 50.05%. The raw record reflects population growth more than a record rate, so the late count is working through a near-2018 electorate.

Thune's critics on the right, including Senator Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson backed the failed 31-15 motion to delay Thune's re-election, after activists such as Mike Cernovich blamed the leader for the defeat. Their complaint is that Republicans could have passed the SAVE Act; in January it meets a Democratic Senate instead.

Senator John Thune

Thune was re-elected Senate Republican leader by acclamation on 10 November after a motion to delay failed 31-15. He kept the filibuster that stopped the SAVE Act, the choice his critics on the right blame for the defeat.

House Republicans under Jim Jordan

House Republicans elected Jordan minority leader by 106 votes to 73 over Steve Scalise on 10 November, after Speaker Mike Johnson declined to run. They replaced the leadership that lost the majority, while Senate Republicans kept theirs.

Donald Trump

Trump asked on Truth Social on 9 November whether anybody believed the election "was honest" and blamed the machines, having told The New York Times on polling night he would accept the results. No Republican campaign had sued over a 2026 result by 10 November, so the claim has no case behind it.

Judge David O. Carter

Carter closed the Justice Department's suit over about 20,000 California mail ballots on 10 November after the department withdrew it, writing that the suit "attempted to disrupt an ongoing election". The closure leaves the department with no court order touching a 2026 California ballot.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.