First-class postcards are being dispatched this week to 7,901 Moore County registered voters who have not voted in a federal election since 1998.

Glenda Clendenin, county director of elections, said the mailing is part of a “list maintenance” procedure required by federal law.

The idea is to determine if the registrants’ home addresses are correctly listed on registration records and if they are still residents of the county.

“If the mail is not returned, the elections office is to assume the voter is still a resident at that address and is to remain an active voter in Moore County,” Clendenin told The Pilot. “If the mail is returned, however, the Board of Elections must send a forwardable notice attempting to locate the voter and giving them the opportunity to correct their address or cancel their registration if they no longer live in Moore County.”

Clendenin reports that members of the Moore County Board of Elections were “astonished” when they learned the size of the list.

“All we want are good records,’ Clendenin said. “This will help us as elections officials and will help candidates. Voters have a responsibility.”

Clendenin said the effort under way is not the same thing as purging voter registration books, a practice discontinued several years ago. No one’s name will be permanently removed from the books just because he or she has not voted. However, the names of people who consistently do not vote will be placed on an inactive list.

Clendenin said this does not mean that an inactive registrant will not be allowed to vote, but the process may be slower because that voter will probably be required to vote a provisional ballot.

The law requires that any voter who remains inactive for two federal general elections will be removed from voter registration records, she added.

Second Mailing

The mailing this week is the second this winter. First-class letters were dispatched to about 1,800 registrants two weeks ago. These were individuals whose registration information does not include a street or road number address.

About two-thirds of the first mailing was returned as “undeliverable.” These names will go onto the inactive list.

It’s costing the county between $3,500 and $4,000 for the first-class mailing. Clendenin said the law requires first-class mailing, but the county was able to save some money by sending first- class postcards for the mailing to 7,901 registrants.

Because of the special mailing, the elections board cannot conduct any elections for at least 90 days. Clendenin explained that this restriction is a legal requirement giving recipients of the special mailing an opportunity to respond.

Clendenin notified officials with Moore County, the town of Carthage and the Board of Education that they cannot call a referendum before June.

The earlier mailing to 1,800 registrants with incomplete addresses was an attempt to clean up registration records before this latest mailing.

Part of the problem is that registrants have failed to cite a home address when they register and this failure sometimes is not corrected when they reach the polling place on Election Day. Clendenin said that voters are required to give their names and home addresses when they show up at polling places. But on busy election days, precinct workers often may forget this requirement.

Clendenin said some voters don’t realize that a post office box is not a home address. She said that voter registration books require a home address, not a post office box or General Delivery. The elections board has to have the actual physical address, which means street and house number, for each registrant.

An estimated 40 percent of registrants identified without house numbers voted in the November general election. Clendenin said precinct officials caught this omission and corrected more than 1,300 addresses at the polls in November.

“But voters can expect a special emphasis to be placed on this statutory requirement in future elections,” she said.

Cooperative Effort

Clendenin called the mailing a cooperative effort between her office and postal officials. Area postmasters were notified prior to the mailings and were asked for cooperation.

“Although it means additional work for postal staff now, they are pleased that the end result will save them hours during the next political season,” she said.

Cooperation has also come from the county’s road name addressing program, a unit of the Department of Planning. Clendenin said that as a courtesy to her office, addressing personnel have notified people with address changes to call the elections office. The addressing unit tries to keep up to date addresses on every resident of Moore County as part of the 911 emergency communications program.

Clendenin said that under state law, it is the responsibility of voters to notify the elections office of any changes in address at least 25 days before an election. She added that a prompt response will help her office and save money for the county.

Moore County has more than 50,000 registered voters, and Clendenin said her board was surprised to realize that more than 15 percent of those registrants have not voted since 1998.