Sen. Steve Goss racked up $19,000 worth of mileage on his car over three years, but his campaign paid him for it over the course of four months.

That’s not how campaign finance is supposed to work, according to State Board of Elections officials.

Goss, a Democrat from Boone, received three payments for mileage between October of last year and January of this year that totaled about $19,000. At the current federal reimbursement rate of 55 cents a mile, that’s about 35,000 miles.

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The State Board of Elections is conducting an audit of campaign expenditures by Rep. Ty Harrell, a Raleigh Democrat. 

Gary Bartlett, the board's executive director, said the audit was a routine procedure when the board's staff finds incomplete or insufficient information.

"We're asking for more details on the expenditures," Bartlett said.

The latest campaign report was filed over the summer, the middle of a non-election year, when there is minimal campaign activity.

"They indicated they had concerns about campaign activity in the off-year election cycle," Harrell said Wednesday.

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The Associated Press and television networks have already painted North Carolina blue for Barack Obama, but the state still has ballots left to count.

The counties report having more than 53,700 provisional ballots that won't be counted until next week, Lynn Bonner reports. Those include more than 4,000 each in Mecklenburg and Wake counties, and more than 2,000 each in New Hanover and Robeson counties.

Obama holds a 13,692 vote lead in the state according to the unofficial tally.

Gary Bartlett, head of the State Board of Elections, has said that historical trends show that in the end, the candidate who was ahead on Election Day ends up with a wider lead.

Candidates hoping for some national coattails will have to work a little harder in North Carolina.

Under a state law dating back decades, voters who wish to cash a straight-ticket ballot must cast their vote for president separately.

The law was put into place by state Democrats to protect themselves from state voters' longstanding preference for Republican presidential candidates.

But it can also hurt the presidential candidate, as thousands of voters do not realize they have to do more than mark the straight-ticket option.

Justin Moore, a computer science graduate from Duke University now working for Google, analyzed the state's election results in 2000 and 2004. He found that between 2.5 and 3 percent of ballots did not include a vote for president.

With polls showing a highly competitive race between Barack Obama and John McCain this year, the effect of straight-ticket undervotes could be more significant.

It also has an effect on nonpartisan offices such as mayors and Supreme Court judges.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beverly Perdue has recorded a robocall reminding voters that they have to 1) Vote for president, 2) Decide whether to vote straight-ticket for down-ballot partisan races, and 3) Cast votes for local offices and judges.

State elections directory Gary Bartlett said that voters may mark the straight-ticket option and then crossover to the other party in selected races.

State elections director Gary Bartlett heard about the RNC conference call today saying that voter registration fraud is rampant in North Carolina, and wants to clarify the state board's position.

The state elections board takes voter fraud seriously, but organizations have the right to participate in voter registration drives, Bartlett told Lynn Bonner.

"Certainly, when someone tries to commit fraud...it does slow us down, there is no doubt about that, but we have to balance everything," Bartlett said. The suspicious forms are "just a small portion of many things we’ll be reviewing."

The state has not finished its investigation into the bogus registration forms submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, he said, but it appears so far that the people who submitted them were motivated by "personal greed," not partisan politics.

"It doesn’t have anything to do with them supporting or opposing any cause," he said.

Update: Deputy Director Johnnie McLean told the Charlotte Observer that the bogus forms appear to have been filed by "a lazy worker" hired by ACORN. She says she does not see any evidence of voter fraud.

"For somebody to say that with no apparent evidence to support it, it just doesn't do very much to establish trust in the elections process," she said.

The State Board of Elections has found 135 bogus voter registration forms.

The elections board is checking suspicious voter registration forms handed in by canvassers working for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which works to register low-income people as voters.

Elections board director Gary Bartlett said 104 of the incorrect forms were from Durham, 30 from Wake and one from Mecklenburg.

Since 2007, ACORN claims to have registered 1.3 million people nationwide, including nearly 28,000 in North Carolina. The group flags questionable forms submitted by its canvassers, but by law it must submit all forms to the elections boards.

Elections officials said falsified forms do not lead to voter fraud, since names that do not have accurate information don't make it onto the voter rolls. (AP) 

After this election, North Carolina will stop using Social Security numbers to verify new voters.

On Thursday, The New York Times named the state as one of several using Social Security numbers despite federal laws requiring that the numbers be checked only if no state-issued identification is available.

The Social Security database is plagued with errors which could force some qualified voters to provide additional identification — adding an unnecessary barrier to voting.

The need for more identification could cause confusion Nov. 4, an Election Day expected to bring unprecedented numbers to the polls. State officials say that by Election Day they expect to have registered more than 800,000 new North Carolina voters this year.

About 218,000 were also taken off the rolls, so the net gain would be about 600,000 voters.

Since last October, 400,000 Social Security numbers have been checked, and State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett said that typically more than 40 percent are kicked back. (N&O) 

A campaign finance group wants an investigation over the Republican Governors Association.

Democracy North Carolina filed a complaint today with the State Board of Elections arguing that the method the national GOP group is using to raise money is unlawful.

According to campaign finance reports, the RGA's North Carolina 2008 Political Action Committee has raised nearly $390,000 to boost the campaign of Republican nominee Pat McCrory.

Democracy North Carolina head Bob Hall says the association raised money from out-of-state donors who aren't being told the money is going to North Carolina. He argues that state law doesn't allow that.

"The PAC is violating the prohibition against accepting contributions made "in the name of another," as well as laws regarding the proper disclosure of the true source of its money," he argues in the letter. "North Carolina law requires a clear and close nexus between the donor and the recipient."

Hall also says that he does not believe the RGA PAC is the only one, and an investigation would help clarify the law.

Elections Director Gary Bartlett said that the board will investigate the complaint.

North Carolina's top elections official expressed frustration Monday at the pace of an ongoing review by State Auditor Les Merritt's office.

Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said the auditor's examination of the state's voter rolls has become a distraction.

Merritt's office began its review in January 2007. It has not released any results, David Ingram reports.

"They're continually holding it open so they can try to find something. They need to get their work done so we can have an election," Bartlett said. "We have done everything they have asked us to do."

State lawmakers chided Merritt, a Republican, a year ago for using preliminary results to delay a bill related to voter registration.

Bartlett, a Democratic appointee, said Monday that he expected a conclusion to the review soon after that legislative hearing.

"The auditor came to me, shook my hand and asked that we work together to come to a completion on this. I gave him my word that we would work together in any way possible," Bartlett said. "Since then, it has been one-sided."

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