Justice on voters

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating North Carolina's voter rolls.

In an April 18, 2007, letter to State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett, the chief of the Justice Department's voting section said that it had already done a preliminary analysis of voter registrations.

"According to that report, voter registration actually exceeded the total citizen voting age population in 10 percent or more of the jurisdictions within your state," wrote John K. Tanner.

Bartlett told the Charlotte Observer that the study's methodology is flawed. Officials cannot remove an inactive voter from the rolls until after two consecutive federal elections. In urban counties with a lot of people moving around, that can inflate voter rolls, he said.