(Spirit Lake)-A public hearing held during Tuesday’s Dickinson County Board of Supervisors meeting drives home the point that if you move, you need to update your voter registration.
The hearing stemmed from research done by a Dickinson County resident that turned up several people on the voter rolls that no longer reside in the county.
Jordan Moyer oversees elections in the Dickinson County Auditor’s Office. She says she was notified of the matter on July 12th and that letters were sent to the affected people on July 17th. Moyer says chances are those people had been contacted earlier by the Secretary of State’s Office but didn’t respond:
“I believe it is every March The Secretary of State’s Office processes National Change of Address forms where we have to go into our system and they have the voter rolls and the information from the USPS, like Lori did, and that NCOA card is sent to every registered voter that is made inactive and it’s with the NCOA reason, and then they have to send that card back for us to know that we need to cancel you or know they’re still at this address.”
Moyer adds they have safeguards in place to make sure those who vote absentee aren’t doing so twice in the same election:
“If you go from Clay to Dickinson and you already processed a ballot, which we have had happen, we call that county or we’ll tell that person and say you’ve already absentee voted. So, then there’s times where they’ve moved and forgot about it and then they go and we’ll say that you either need to go and cancel absentee vote there or you need to wait until after the election to do anything.”
She notes that providing false information on a voter registration form is a felony.
