(NewsNation) — Local advocacy groups in North Carolina have asked the state Board of Elections to remove signs at polling places written in Spanish that tell people it is illegal for noncitizens to vote.
Writing on the yellow sign found in Durham, Orange, Granville, Pitt and Mecklenburg counties translates in English to “WARNING: If you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you cannot vote in elections,” NewsNation local affiliate WNCN reported.
“It is illegal! It is a crime. 18 U.S. Code § 611. You could be deported. Don’t do it!” the signs say.
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Multiple organizations, such as Forward Justice and El Pueblo, sent a letter to the North Carolina Board of Elections saying that since early in-person voting started on Oct. 17, they’ve received more than a dozen reports about these signs.
Kathleen Roblez, the senior voting rights counsel and litigation manager at Forward Justice, told WNCN the signs are both intimidating and confusing.
They are meant to scare people away from voting, Roblez said.
“So these signs, in our opinion, are meant to target people who are monolingual Spanish speakers, and they are meant to give the message that you’re being watched,” Roblez said.
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North Carolina Elections Integrity Team, a group that claims its goal is to prevent voter fraud, made the signs, WNCN wrote. The group’s president, Jim Womack, defended them to the outlet by saying there are no threats or “inferences” of targeting anyone on the signs.
“Citizens of the United States have nothing to fear from exercising their constitutional right to vote,” Womack said. “Noncitizens who wisely choose not to vote have nothing to fear as well.”
However, advocates said in the letter that the “signage threatens to chill the fundamental right to vote” and “constitutes unlawful voter intimidation,” which is why they are requesting the North Carolina State Board of Elections take them down as well as release an “affirmative statement in Spanish reassuring Spanish speakers who are eligible voters in this state that they are safe to vote.”
Organizations pointed out, in their correspondence with the Board of Elections, that Womack was seen in a video obtained by CBS News instructing members of the North Carolina Elections Integrity Team to flag people with “Hispanic-sounding last names” as they combed through voter rolls to identify potentially suspicious registrations.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections’ response
During a press conference Friday morning about early voting, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, addressed the signs in response to a reporter’s questions.
“We have a fine line that we have to walk, and that’s between accurate information, free speech, electioneering and whether in any of that there’s voter intimidation or a restriction of First Amendment rights,” Brinson Bell said.
When there are signs with inaccurate information being put out, the Board will say they cannot be displayed, Brinson Bell said. This was the case in Durham, where posters different from the ones the North Carolina Elections Integrity Team were posted.
Durham County Board of Elections Director Derek Bowens said to WNCN that on these signs, the word “extranjero,” which is Spanish for “foreigner,” was used instead of noncitizen, which caused confusion. Thus, they were able to be taken down.
Signs by the North Carolina Elections Integrity Team are unnecessary, Paul Cox, the North Carolina Board of Elections general counsel, said Friday. At every voting site, he said, there are eligibility rules for voting posted up on the wall in large print.
Those wanting to vote have to sign an attestation that they meet all the qualifications to cast their ballot, including ones regarding U.S. citizenship, Cox explained. In addition, Patrick Gannon, public information director for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told Reuters there was no evidence of noncitizens trying to affect the election in any way.
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However, if the signs are accurately communicating the law, “there’s no real basis for election officials to remove them,” Cox said.
Noncitizen voting has been pegged as an issue by Republican politicians during the 2024 election, and eight states have measures this year asking voters to amend state constitutions to ban them from voting. However, it is already illegal under federal law.
Some experts contend these measures could create hurdles that lead people to believe noncitizens voting is a bigger issue than it is when, in reality, data doesn’t support GOP claims of it increasing.
“These (amendments) are solutions for a nonexistent problem,” Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, said in an interview with NewsNation.
NewsNation’s Jorge Ventura, Safia Samee Ali and Reuters contributed to this report.
