Voting Rights and Immigrant Rights Groups Contact NCSBE to Request Removal of Signage Targeting Latino Voters Across the State
RALEIGH, N.C - With Election Day two weeks away, and Early Voting already underway across North Carolina, advocates with El Pueblo, Forward Justice and twenty other organizations are sounding the alarm about recent incidents in the state that they say will have a chilling effect on voters.
The ‘North Carolina Election Integrity Team’ (NCEIT) has placed yellow signs at polling places in at least Durham, Orange, Granville, Pitt, and Mecklenburg counties, which warn individuals in Spanish that they will be charged with a crime and deported if they vote in this election as a non-citizen. Advocates say these signs are typically the only signs or information of any kind that a voter would encounter in Spanish at their polling site, and would understandably garner the attention of monolingual Spanish speakers and give them the impression that they are being targeted and watched. This escalating display of misleading and intimidating information is not only threatening, but creates an environment of fear and exclusion for these voters, directly undermining their right to participate in the democratic process. Additional signs with similarly harmful and deterring language from other named and unnamed groups have also been spotted across the state, further amplifying the urgency to address this widespread voter suppression tactic immediately.
Iliana Santillan, Executive Director of El Pueblo says, “El Pueblo serves a diverse constituency of Latinos throughout the state of North Carolina, including community members from mixed-status households, which oftentimes means that the parents are undocumented but the children were born here and are U.S. citizens. These signs, in addition to the ‘non-citizen’ voting amendment on the ballot this year, are a continuation and escalation of the anti-immigrant messaging and policy we have been seeing recently. It’s important for our people to feel welcome and safe at polling places and these signs are intentionally creating the opposite effect. Mixed status families can especially be impacted by this type of intimidation, as well as sending the wrong message and sowing additional confusion.”
NCEIT, an "election protection" activist group of reportedly 1,800 volunteers in North Carolina, has consistently targeted Latino voters - the fastest growing population in the state of North Carolina, under the guise of an alleged concern about “non-citizen voting.” James Womack, who is the President of NCEIT and chairs the Republican Party in Lee County, North Carolina, instructed his volunteers to consider any individual with a Hispanic-sounding surname to be a “suspicious voter”.
In a video obtained by CBS News, Womack is seen instructing attendees at a virtual meeting to flag voters with "Hispanic-sounding last names" as one way to identify potentially suspicious registrations as the group combs through voter rolls ahead of the 2024 election. On the call, Womack said, "If you've got folks that you, that were registered, and they're missing information… and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter. It doesn't mean they're illegal. It just means they're suspicious."
Kat Roblez, Senior Voting Rights Counsel & Litigation Manager of Forward Justice says, “NCEIT has openly admitted to attempting to target Latino voters in North Carolina, and their signs are an extension of that. The State Board already asks everyone registering to vote to attest that they are a citizen, and these signs serve no purpose but to intimidate. These signs must be removed from polling places. We cannot allow bad actors with discriminatory intent to intimidate Latino voters in this manner.”
On behalf of the Coalition, Forward Justice and El Pueblo are requesting that these signs be removed from all polling places, and that the State Board of Elections put out affirmative information in Spanish to let monolingual Spanish speakers know that they are safe to vote in North Carolina and that they have the right to immediately report any intimidating behavior at polling sites.
Caitlin Swain, Co-Director and Chief Counsel of Forward Justice explained, “Every voter in North Carolina has the right to vote free from intimidation or harassment, a sacred right protected under both state and federal law. The enthusiasm from voters statewide has broken records already for historic engagement – and Latino voters are a rising force in the electorate with growing power in our state, where election margins remain razor thin. Our legal team will continue to vigilantly support all North Carolina voters’ right to cast a ballot. And we want to be crystal clear: any voter with concerns at the polls can contact us using the non-partisan Voter Protection hotline: 888-OUR-VOTE and we will respond.”
View the full advocacy letter here
Contacts: Veronica Aguilar -El Pueblo veronica@elpueblo.org
Brittany Cheatham- Forward Justice bcheatham@forwardjustice.org