Voters did not register to vote in North Dakota using identical details

CLAIM: When registering to vote in North Dakota, 23,000 people used the same phone number.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. North Dakota does not require voter registration. It is the only state in the country that has no such requirement.

THE FACTS: An erroneous tweet circulating on Twitter claims that 23,000 people used the same phone number to register to vote in North Dakota.

The tweet originally claimed that the voter registration occurred in North Carolina but was updated in the replies to say North Dakota.

“Since North Dakota does not have voter registration, that would be false,” Secretary of State Al Jaeger told The Associated Press.

In a separate tweet the same user claimed that 23,000 people used the same phone number and the address of a prison when voting in North Dakota. Jaeger said that would be impossible, too.

“And, If they tried using the same address when voting, our systems would have quickly identified the duplicate addresses and that it was a prison,” Jaeger said. “By our law, a citizen that is incarcerated cannot vote.”

Voters in North Dakota are asked to show an acceptable form of identification such as a driver’s license as proof of address and then the election officials search for their name on a precinct voting list. If a voter’s name is not on the list, the election board will attempt to verify the voter’s name and address.

The state has numerous small precincts which allow electoral board officials to quickly verify who is voting in their precinct, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Donnell Preskey, executive director of The North Dakota County Auditors Association, said voters can bring in supplemental information to prove their address like a utility bill or bank statement when voting.

“The county employees go into their system to verify that the person lives in their county,” she said. “If it doesn’t match up, they contact the voter.”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.