"Election protection" activist says he plans to flag voters with "Hispanic-sounding" names as "suspicious"
In a video obtained by CBS News, the leader of an "election protection" activist group of 1,800 volunteers in North Carolina is seen instructing attendees at a virtual meeting to flag voters with "Hispanic-sounding last names" as one way to identify potentially suspicious registrations as the group combs through voter rolls ahead of the 2024 election.
"If you've got folks that you, that were registered, and they're missing information… and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter," said James Womack, the leader of the effort, who chairs the Republican Party in Lee County, North Carolina. "It doesn't mean they're illegal. It just means they're suspicious."
Womack is the president and founder of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, a group of self-described patriots dedicated to investigating the election for what they perceive as incidents of fraud in the pivotal presidential battleground state — where polls put the contest at a statistical tie between the Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Womack describes his organization as comprised mostly of retirees working remotely from their computers to analyze public records related to voting. He says the group has a list of multiple factors they are using to flag suspicious voters, a task he believes is necessary because of flaws in how voter information has been collected in recent years.
North Carolina's State Board of Elections maintains that its voter rolls are compliant under federal and state regulations.
But Womack alleges, "We have corrupt voter lists." He says, "Citizens, individual citizens have a right to that information and they analyze that information to identify potential illegal or improperly registered people."
His comments echoed a common theme being repeated by former President Trump and other Republican leaders on the 2024 campaign trail — that they suspect large numbers of undocumented immigrants intend to cast ballots. That claim is hotly disputed by immigration advocates and election officials of both parties around the country, who say no evidence has surfaced to support the notion that undocumented immigrants have ever attempted to vote in significant numbers.
Juan Proaño, the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, told CBS News it defies logic to expect undocumented immigrants would take the risk of crossing the border and then place themselves in legal jeopardy by registering to vote and actually voting in an election.
"It's very much a myth," said Proaño," but the campaigns have essentially used it as rhetoric, again, to try and suppress and intimidate the Latino vote."
Jeff Loperfido, chief counsel of voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, says targeting of individual voters based in part on whether their names sound Hispanic is "not surprising, considering so much of the rhetoric from one of our national parties is saying there is a massive influx of immigrants swinging elections."
"It's a distraction that is meant to scare people and depress turnout of legal voters," said Loperfido, "and ultimately cause chaos and confusion around the outcome of the election."
Womack says he is not targeting voters based on race and maintains that his group is following the law.
"Well, we're all we're empowered to do is what the law allows. And the law allows us to investigate," he said "That's, you know, exercising our rights under the law to investigate and make sure that no one else — no other legal citizens vote is diluted."
Womack's North Carolina organization is one of eight state-based groups under the umbrella of a broader national effort to "clean up" voter rolls called the Election Integrity Network, led by longtime GOP election attorney Cleta Mitchell. Mitchell participated in the infamous taped phone call after the 2020 election in which Trump asked Georgia's secretary of state to find him 11,780 more votes.
Womack described Mitchell as the "matriarch" of the organization on an episode of Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. Since then, he has been working with other activists to organize poll watching, investigate voter lists and challenge individual voters.
"We've got a big battle ahead of us and I am really grateful for all that you do," Mitchell told Womack in a lengthy sit-down interview on the group's website.
In an email to CBS, Mitchell described Womack as "a great patriot" and "the very essence of an American hero."
Election activists and the RNC's legal fight
Citizen activist groups have played a support role in some of the dozens of lawsuits challenging voter rolls in several key states.
In August, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections claiming there were more than 225,000 individuals on voter rolls who are potentially ineligible because they had not submitted mandatory voter registration information including Social Security numbers and driver's license information.
The state board maintains that the rolls are properly maintained and individuals missing required information can still vote as long as they bring a voter ID or other authorized identification document.
Loperfido, whose organization analyzed the list of voters, told CBS News that the RNC's list of potentially ineligible voters disproportionately includes Black and Brown people, based on their analysis of the publicly available demographic information.
But the RNC says possible non-citizen voters on the rolls could dilute the votes of "legal" voters, and specifically cites a complaint by a "concerned citizen, Carol Snow," to the Board of Elections in October 2023 as the basis for concerns with voter registrations in the state.
Snow, who described herself as an "election denier" in an email to CBS News, is a member of NC Audit Force, another group under the umbrella of Womack's North Carolina team. At a meeting of fellow activists this April, Snow appeared alongside Womack and described herself as "a busybody," in a video posted to YouTube.
"I'll provide the oversight. If you are not going to do it, we will. This election system belongs to us. We the People," she said.
Snow's public records request for voter registrations lists became the basis for the RNC lawsuit alleging voters failed to provide federally mandated registration information. Snow had sought to identify voters whose registrations were missing Social Security or driver's license information, which the complaint alleges could make them ineligible under federal voting rules.
An official with the RNC did not respond to CBS News when asked if they coordinated with Womack or Snow on any ongoing litigation.
Snow says she was contacted by the RNC only after the suit was filed, when she says an RNC attorney reached out to her to ask for any additional information. She said she declined to assist them.
Last week, a judge appointed by former President Trump threw out part of the RNC's case, saying that state officials did comply with federal election law. The judge's ruling noted that the National Voter Registration Act prevents states from systematically removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of an election.
Targeting "suspicious" voters
Though states are prohibited from systematically removing voters from the rolls ahead of November, self-described election integrity activists are still using public records of voters to target individuals they deem to be "suspicious." Their goal, Womack said, is to be ready if there are names that can be challenged after votes are cast, but before the election is certified.
"There are a number of private organizations that are operating to analyze the voter list," Womack said. "Individual citizens have a right to that information and they analyze that information to identify potential illegal or improperly registered people."
In a video, which was provided to CBS News by a progressive watchdog group and independently verified, Womack is seen describing a strategy to use publicly released voter registration lists to create his own "suspicious voter lists."
"So we can create our 'suspicious voters' list for North Carolina. We are optimistic that we will have lists available for every county that— once the voting begins," Womack said on a Zoom call in August 2024. "I certainly believe we can challenge people that vote on the list."
Womack says he and his group are assembling county-by-county lists of potentially suspicious voters who can be challenged during the critical period between Election Day and certification. The investigation would include looking up voters' home addresses, scouring property records, voter registration information and the date the person registered to vote.
Womack says the issue of non-citizen voters is not his top concern, but it is a factor when considering vulnerabilities in registration lists.
Womack told CBS News that a "Hispanic-sounding" last name was just one of many factors he would use in identifying suspicious voters. Other factors he cited may include missing voter registration information, if an individual voted absentee by mail, how recently the person registered to vote, and if they voted absentee.
"The Hispanic-sounding last name certainly is not exclusive," he said in response to questions from CBS News. "We are trying to find every illegitimate voter and — and to challenge the ones that shouldn't be voting."
He cited "mispronunciations" and misspellings of Hispanic or Arab names as a reason they could be flagged.
"You look for natural mispronunciations or natural grammatical errors or punctuation problems," he said. "And that way, you can do proper list maintenance. Now, among the Hispanics, I would say the same thing about the Arab population."
"The idea that you combine those things and it equates to a suspicious voter is not true," said Loperfido. "Anyone targeting voters based on that kind of analysis and hispanic last names, you are playing with fire," he said, citing both state and federal laws that prohibit individuals from targeting voters on the basis of race.
Womack said that if he or his fellow volunteers believe a voter is ineligible, based on a variety of factors, they are prepared to challenge them at county elections boards across the state. Third-party individuals can challenge voters in person on Election Day or, if they voted by absentee ballot, up to five days after Election Day.
"If there's a large-scale operation of voter fraud going on in North Carolina," he said, "we could be very busy filing challenges all over the place."
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the wording of a quote from Carol Snow, a reference to the National Voter Registration Act and a description of the racial makeup of the RNC's list of potentially ineligible voters.