Raleigh, N.C. – Fifty-five percent of North Carolina voters support eliminating same-day voter registration, according to a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute.
The legislature is considering eliminating same-day voter registration in order to give local elections boards more time to verify that registrants meet residence and legal requirements to vote. Fifty-five percent of voters said they support eliminating same-day registration. Thirty-six percent said they oppose doing so, and eight percent said they do not know or are undecided.
Analyzing party affiliation, Republicans most support eliminating same-day registration (70 percent), along with 54 percent of unaffiliated voters. Democratic voters are almost evenly split with 45 percent supporting the idea and 46 percent opposed.
“Same Day Registration is new to North Carolina, implemented in 2008 and immediately created a new class of voters. These voters’ addresses are not required to be verified before voting like all voters who register before the deadline,” said Civitas Institute elections analyst Susan Myrick. “As a result, in the General Election of 2008, thousands of people registered to vote, voted at the same time and had their ballot counted before the Board of Elections became aware that they did not live at the addresses they had provided at the time of registration.”
The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.
Full Text of Question:
“The legislature is considering eliminating same-day voter registration in order to give local elections boards more time to verify that registrants meet residence and legal requirements to vote. Opponents claim that this change will make it more difficult for some people to vote, while supporters say it is necessary to protect against Election Day fraud. Do you support or oppose the elimination of same-day registration?”
Total Support – 55%
Total Oppose – 36%
Strongly Support – 42%
Somewhat Support – 14%
Somewhat Oppose – 12%
Strongly Oppose –24%
Undecided/Don’t Know – 8%
For the full results and crosstabs, click here.
This poll of 600 likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina was conducted September 22-25, 2011 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past three general elections (2006, 2008, 2010) or be newly registered to vote since November 2, 2010.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in at least one of the past three general elections or is newly registered since November 2, 2010.
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