Author: Veronica Degraffenreid
Preregistration Repealed
Pursuant to S.L. 2013‐381 (HB 589), preregistration was repealed effective Sept. 1, 2013. With the maintenance release from this weekend, if an applicant is underage, their application can no longer be saved to the preregistration queue. These applications will need to be saved to the Incomplete Queue with a reason of underage. There is a new letter which accompanies this new IQ reason.
Timely Preregistrations
The existing preregistration queue still exists. All preregistrations that were processed in SEIMS prior to Sept. 1, 2013 will remain in the preregistration queue until the applicant is eligible by age to be registered. If a preregistration application was timely received, but was not processed by county board staff, then it is not possible at this time to have these applications move automatically into the preregistration queue. Instead, please save the record with the appropriate application date that is prior to Sept. 1, 2013. We will move these timely preregistrations after Friday, Sept. 6, 2013 to the preregistration queue. You will not need to send these preregistrants a preregistration acknowledgement letter. Any preregistration application that is mailed and postmarked before Sept. 1, 2013, may still be deemed timely if received by this Friday. Again, you must process the application with an application date prior to Sept. 1 and with the reason of underage.
Handling Underage Voters
For any applications truly received after August 2013 and the applicant is not qualified to vote because of age, you will need to deny the registration pursuant to G.S. § 163‐82.7(b). A denial letter template is attached. You may send the underage letter to ensure that the applicant did not incorrectly record their date of birth, but if they are truly not qualified, then their voter registration attempt should be denied.
Finally, please send us an estimate on the number of timely preregistrations that you received Saturday or today that need to be processed today.