Early NC primary voter learns she was deleted from Wake County voter rolls: 'A big error'

KNIGHTDALE, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Knightdale woman went to early vote only to learn her name is nowhere to be found in the voter rolls.

Phyllis Thomas said, "Wow, out of the whole Wake County, I'm the only one that is deleted. They told me I can do a paper ballot and I told them I didn't want to do a paper ballot. I want to vote regularly."

Thomas says staff at her early voting site did not argue with her and said they would get to the bottom of it.

"They made a lot of phone calls to find out what went on and she said somebody deleted you from the system. She said there was an error. I said, ok, but that's a big error."

It took some time, but Thomas was eventually able to register to vote during early voting and was able to successfully vote that same day.

Besides casting her vote, Thomas had another concern, "My issue is how many more people were deleted from the system? So it's not just about me. If I didn't go early vote and I waited for November, was I able to vote?"

Thomas reached out to ABC11 Troubleshooter Diane Wilson for answers and she got in touch with the NC Board of Elections, and they confirmed Thomas was mistakenly removed from the Wake County voter rolls in January.

The representative said this happened after her name showed up as a possible duplicate registration through a routine automated check for duplicates. The reason, the representative says, Thomas' name, date of birth, and gender matched exactly with a voter in another county. The representative with the NC BOE also said, "This is a rare, isolated incident that unfortunately can happen as we check for duplicate registrations in a database with 7.5 million voters."

The representative adds even if a voter shows up on Election Day to vote and finds themselves in Thomas' situation, they would be able to vote, as he said safeguards exist for situations like this. Under state law, it states that any registrant who is removed from the voter rolls "shall be reinstated if the voter appears to vote and gives oral or written affirmation that the voter has not moved out of the county but has maintained a residence continuously within the county."

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