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Voters in North Carolina must navigate complex, ever-changing rules and processes when they turn out to cast a ballot each election cycle. To help guide voters through this experience, Democracy North Carolina, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and a broad coalition of North Carolina partners run the North Carolina Election Protection Hotline (888-OUR-VOTE). The Hotline’s primary function is to serve as a trusted, non-partisan source of accurate information for North Carolina voters statewide, providing real-time assistance navigating the voting process and helping ensure all eligible ballots are cast and counted.
In the period leading up to the 2024 General Election, the Hotline fielded 6,460 calls from voters across the state. These calls included questions about the basics of voting, requests for assistance at the polls, reports of voter intimidation, and more.
Policymakers and election administrators often claim that voting is “too easy” and use that supposed ease to justify new restrictions and barriers to the ballot box, but the experiences of Hotline callers in the 2024 General Election reflect otherwise. From the very first step of registering to vote to having one’s ballot counted, Hotline calls show eligible voters across the state bending over backward in an attempt to satisfy a multitude of administrative voting requirements — and sometimes still having their ballot kept out of the count.
This report presents the real-life experiences of Hotline callers alongside supplemental statewide voting data and research, casting light on the obstacles voters face and opportunities to improve the election system for all North Carolinians in five major areas raised frequently by callers:
- Voter registration
- Voter photo ID
- Voting by mail
- Voter intimidation and electioneering at the polls
- Disability access at the polls
Additional information on the support and advocacy provided to North Carolina voters through the Election Protection Hotline coalition in 2024 can be found in the 2024 NC Election Protection Preliminary Report and the 2024 CBOE Monitoring Report.