Elections in Spain testify to voter intimidation

(NewsNation) — Local rights groups in North Carolina have asked the state election board to remove signs written in Spanish at polling places telling people that non-citizens are not allowed to vote.

The yellow sign in Durham, Orange, Granville, Pitt and Mecklenburg counties translates into English as “CAUTION: If you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you cannot vote in the election.” Local NewsNation affiliate WNCN reported

“It’s illegal! This is a crime. 18 USC § 611. You may be deported. Don’t do that!” the signs speak.

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Numerous organizations such as Forward Justice and El Pueblo have sent a letter to the North Carolina Board of Elections, saying they have received more than a dozen reports of these signs since early in-person voting began on Oct. 17.

Kathleen Robles, senior voting rights counsel and litigation manager at Forward Justice, told WNCN that the signs are intimidating and confusing.

They’re meant to scare people away from voting, Robles said.

“So these signs, we think, are for monolingual Spanish speakers, and they’re meant to let you know that you’re being watched,” Robles said.

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The North Carolina Election Integrity Team, a group that says its goal is to prevent voter fraud, filed the signs, WNCN reports. The group’s president, Jim Womack, defended them, saying the signs did not contain any threats or “inferences” to target anyone.

“The citizens of the United States have nothing to fear when exercising their constitutional right to vote,” Womack said. “Non-citizens who wisely choose not to vote have nothing to fear either.”

However, the rights advocates said in the letter that “the signs threaten to chill the fundamental right to vote” and “constitute illegal voter intimidation,” so they are demanding that the North Carolina State Board of Elections remove them and publish “an affirmative statement in Spanish assuring Hispanics who have the right to vote in this state that they are safe to vote.”

In their correspondence with the election commission, the organizations noted that Womack was seen in the video obtained CBS News instructing members of North Carolina’s election integrity team to flag people with “Hispanic surnames” when they review voter rolls to find potentially suspicious registrations.

North Carolina State Election Commission Response

During a press conference Friday morning about early voting, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director North Carolina State Election Commissionanswering the correspondent’s question, he turned to the plates.

“We have a fine line that we have to walk, and that’s between accurate information, free speech, campaigning, and whether there’s something about voter intimidation or First Amendment rights,” Brinson Bell said.

When signs with inaccurate information are posted, the council will say they can’t be displayed, Brinson Bell said. That was the case in Durham, where different posters were posted than those posted by the North Carolina Election Integrity Team.

Durham County Board of Elections Director Derek Bowens told WNCN that the signs used the word “extranjero,” which is Spanish for “foreigner,” instead of “non-citizen,” causing confusion. Thus, it was possible to remove them.

The notices from the North Carolina Election Integrity Group are unnecessary, Paul Cox, general counsel for the North Carolina Election Commission, said Friday. According to him, the rules for participation in voting are posted on the wall in large print at each polling place.

Those who want to vote must sign an affidavit saying they meet all the requirements to vote, including U.S. citizenship requirements, Cox explained. Additionally, Patrick Gannon, director of public information for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told Reuters there was no evidence that non-citizens were trying to influence the election in any way.

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However, if the signs accurately convey the law, “there’s no real reason for election officials to remove them,” Cox said.

Non-citizens voted Republican politicians pegged it as a problem during the 2024 election, and eight states this year have measures requiring voters to amend their state constitutions to bar them from voting. However, it is already illegal under federal law.

Some experts say the measures could create obstacles that lead people to believe non-citizen voting is a bigger problem than it actually is, when in fact the data doesn’t support GOP claims that it’s on the rise.

“This (amendment) is solving a problem that doesn’t exist,” Ron Hejduk, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, told NewsNation.

NewsNation’s Jorge Ventura, Safiya Same Ali and Reuters contributed to this report.

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