Each post in SCSJ’s “Votes Not Counted” series tells the story of a person qualified to vote before the passage of North Carolina’s Monster Voter Suppression Law, whose ballot was unjustly denied this year. Below is Alex’s story. If you know another eligible voter whose vote has been denied, please email sarah@scsj.org.
Alexandria Lane is a 26-year-old native North Carolinian and has spent most of her life in this state. In this November’s election, she may be denied the right to vote because of the law passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013 to “combat voter fraud.” That new law (H.B. 589) ended same day registration—the ability of voters to register (or to change their registration from county-to-county) during early voting.
Alex was forced to vote a provisional ballot when she went to a Cary, NC, early voting site on Monday, October 27, because the pollworker had no record of her registration.
Alex grew up in Morrisville, NC, and went to school at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she double majored in political science and biology. She moved up to Virginia in the summer of 2013 for work, and she registered to vote and voted in Virginia. But she missed North Carolina, and her friends and family here, so she returned to North Carolina in April of this year. She works for Fidelity Charitable in Raleigh, and she serves on the board of a local animal welfare non-profit organization.
She went to the DMV on May 29th to get a North Carolina driver’s license again, and when the DMV worker asked her if she’d like to register to vote, she emphatically said yes!
But when Alex went to vote on Monday, she found out that the DMV messed up. Now Alex might lose her chance to be heard in the election. Alex did everything right—she did everything she was supposed to do in order to be able to participate in this election. Voting is important to Alex. She’s voted in every general election except for one municipal election (because she was in Japan helping with disaster relief after the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident) since she turned 18.
This didn’t need to happen—if the North Carolina General Assembly had not repealed same day registration, Alex would have been able to cast a regular ballot. She wouldn’t now be burdened trying to do everything she can to get the Wake County Board of Elections to count her provisional ballot; she won’t know if she’s been successful until the end of the canvass, 10 days after the election.
Alex did everything right, and she may still end up being disenfranchised. She’s sharing her story to fight back against bad voting laws.
