The North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles is all set to make sweeping changes to the state’s voter registration assistance process after an investigation uncovered that a number of non-citizens had been registered to vote by DMV examiners. The announcement came from federal prosecutors.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina made allegations against North Carolina’s DMV in November of illegally registering a total of six non-citizens to vote. Local news outlet WBTV interviewed two of the non-citizens who said that they weren’t aware of being registered. Follow-ups with the other individuals revealed they didn’t know they had been registered either.
Records indicate that none of the six who were registered cast ballots in any elections. Incorrect voter registration can make the process of obtaining U.S. citizenship extremely difficult. Ferguson said that he confronted the DMV about the errors in July 2025, requesting the agency launch an investigation into the matter.
“The investigation found individuals were erroneously given citizen identification cards for years and some were registered to vote even after informing the DMV they were not citizens,” Ferguson went on to say in a press release on Tuesday, Dec. 2, according to WBTV.
Federal law allows DMVs all over the nation to provide assistance in filling out voter registration forms for those who are obtaining identification documents. In North Carolina, those who are getting their IDs or driver’s license can fill out a voter registration form that will then be forwarded by the DMV to the correct county board to complete registration.
The DMV’s investigation revealed that some of the cases were the result of examiners checking the wrong box, marking the individual as a citizen on the registration form. They found an additional system error where there was a three-month period that allowed ineligible individuals to register to vote.
After the investigation concluded, Ferguson revealed that the North Carolina DMV agreed to making several changes, including the issuance of a reminder to examiners about registration protocols. They also agreed to look into a “technical solution” to include citizenship checks into the DMV’s online and kiosk voter registration application systems.
"*" indicates required fields
Several other fixes include bringing software up to date and to hire more examiners to increase staffing. One of the individuals who was interviewed by WBTV is Hispanic and is in the United States legally. She has not been accused of a crime. Ferguson sent an additional letter to the DMV, where he suggested this was more than just an error but a potential systemic problem.
DMV Commissioner Paul Tine issued a response on October 28 where he stood firm on his view of the situation, saying that there are a number of systems already in place that protect the majority of people registering to vote. “The small number of erroneous voter registrations that your office has identified supports the notion that the DMV’s standard protocols are effective,” Tine said. “While the ideal number of erroneous voter registrations would, of course, be zero, six out of the millions of applications the DMV has processed is an exceedingly low error rate.”
Featured image: screenshot from embedded video