RNC legal victory clears North Carolina voter roll purge of noncitizens through jury responses
The state of North Carolina now must remove noncitizens excused from jury duty from voter rolls, Fox News Digital has learned Thursday.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party say they secured a consent judgment requiring the North Carolina State Board of Elections to use jury-duty records to identify registered voters who have acknowledged they are not U.S. citizens.
Those noncitizens will have to be removed from voter rolls, a significant legal victory in forcing a state to purge its voter rolls amid strong Democrat opposition.
"This agreement is a major win for election integrity in North Carolina," RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told Fox News Digital in a statement. "It’s straightforward: if someone admits they’re not a U.S. citizen during jury duty, that information should be used to check the voter rolls and remove anyone who doesn’t belong."
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The agreement was accepted by Superior Court Judge Jennifer Bedford after an 19-minute online hearing Wednesday.
"This type of information, I think the General Assembly has made somewhat clear, should not fall on deaf ears," Bedford said, The Carolina Journal reported, adding that information submitted to the court system should also be recognized by other agencies.
The agreement sets a schedule through 2028 for clerks to send the information to the elections board. Within 30 days of receiving it, the board must review voter-registration and citizenship status, send county elections boards reports on any registered voters identified, and refer cases to the State Bureau of Investigation and district attorneys if a person appears to have voted before becoming a U.S. citizen.
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Two groups represented by the Elias Law Group, North Carolina Asian Americans Together and El Pueblo, objected to part of the deal requiring the list of people who claimed noncitizenship for jury-duty purposes to be posted on the state elections board’s FTP website.
Their attorney argued that publishing the information online could raise privacy concerns and have a chilling effect, even if the records are public under state law.
The agreement stems from a lawsuit the GOP groups filed in 2024, accusing the state board of failing to comply with a North Carolina law requiring clerks of court to report people who seek to be excused from jury service by saying they are not citizens.
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Under state law, noncitizens are barred from voting in state elections and from serving on juries, but that did not stop then-Gov. Roy Cooper from vetoing a bill in 2019 that would remove illegal immigrants from voter rolls.
The consent judgment, if approved by the court, would require the state's elections board to review information received from county clerks, determine whether those individuals appear on the voter rolls and begin removal procedures for anyone found to be ineligible.
The RNC said it filed a public-records request in 2024 seeking to determine whether the board was complying with the law but did not receive a response.
The RNC and the state GOP later sued, and the board agreed to use the jury-duty information as part of voter-roll maintenance, according to the RNC.
A majority of North Carolina — 83% of Republicans, 59% of Independents and 52% of Democrats – support states removing noncitizens from voter registration rolls, according to Heritage Action polling.
The case is part of a broader Republican legal push focused on voter eligibility and citizenship requirements.
The RNC is involved in litigation defending President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship, and has also asked the Supreme Court to take up a case involving Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law.