They're Making It Harder to Vote in North Carolina and Calling It a Budget Decision

March 4, 2026

No dramatic announcement. No new law. Just a quiet policy change that could keep thousands of North Carolinians off the voter rolls.

Last week, the NC State Board of Elections decided it will no longer provide printed voter registration forms to organizations running voter drives. The reason given? It cost too much. Over $269,000 was spent to print 1.3 million forms in 2024.

But our Executive Director Melissa Price Kromm isn't buying it. She spoke to NC Newsline this week about what this decision actually means for the people who need these drives the most: residents in rural counties with no easy access to a board of elections office, older adults who aren't registering online, and North Carolinians without a driver's license who have no other option.

"It's incredibly important that we have full access for voters," Melissa told NC Newsline, "and this kind of, 'Well, we're not going to provide it. We don't have the resources to provide it' and whatever their argument is, is incredibly suspicious."

She also pointed out that the same board recently mailed over 241,000 letters to voters about ID number issues in their files and couldn't explain what that cost, or whether it contributed to the so-called budget shortfall. Smaller counties are now being told to cover the printing costs themselves. As Melissa put it: "It's literally just passing the buck."

This isn't happening in a vacuum. In 2025, Republican lawmakers tried to criminalize voter registration drives outright. That bill died. But the effect of this new policy looks a lot like the goal of that one.

Read Melissa's full quotes and the complete story at NC Newsline.

NC Board of Elections will no longer provide forms to voter registration drives →

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