Ninety-five names were purged from the Buncombe County voter rolls in April. The 95 had survived a preliminary hearing questioning the legitimacy of 182 names.

The Raleigh-based Voter Integrity Project presented the names to the local board of elections after Asheville Tea Party members sent letters and knocked on doors at addresses that looked suspicious.

In particular, the addresses selected — if the voter registrations were to be believed — housed at least eight registered voters. The door-knocking commenced after about 300 letters of inquiry were returned as undeliverable.

At a preliminary hearing at the board of elections, 87 names were dismissed. Fifty-five of them were dismissed immediately. Jay DeLancy, executive director of VIP-NC, says he still cannot get over the bad logic. He recalled Bob Knapp, who serves as secretary to the board, making a motion to dismiss on the basis that “they are all active voters, therefore they’re not breaking the law.”

DeLancy said he tried to clarify. The 55 were the most important cases, because the suspect names were actually tied to votes. DeLancy argued he is not off-base, saying ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform) in its prime had been found guilty of creating fictitious voters, who wound up voting.

The 95 names that were then sustained were all removed from the rolls following a second hearing. Letters were sent to the suspicious addresses, advising the registered voters that they or their agents must verify their legitimacy on a date certain or re-register should they wish to vote again. Nobody showed up.

In early April, prompted by the Voter Integrity Project, the North Carolina State Board of Elections presented a report with evidence that more than 35,000 people who voted in North Carolina’s 2012 general election had the same name and birthdate as voters registered in another state. There were also 765 voters who matched Social Security numbers in addition to first and last names and birth date with someone who voted in another state. DeLancy expressed concerned that there was nothing but the honor system preventing these people from double-voting.

The VIP has been called racist. Leadership from the League of Women Voters and the local Democratic Party argued the names in question were selected from only 11 of 80 voter precincts. The 11 districts, they argued, had disproportionately high numbers of low-income and African-American voters.

As it turned out, 127 of the 182 suspect registrants claimed to be white and only 79 were Democrat. But that was not enough to stop the activists. Challengers charged that if the VIP was not discriminating against the low-income and African-American communities, they were certainly intimidating their voters.

“That’s the LWV narrative about people potentially stealing votes. They want to paint us as extreme, when the fact is our state laws are such that anybody can commit election fraud and have a good chance of getting away with it,” DeLancy said.

DeLancy said he thinks the efforts he and others are making in the state to reduce voter fraud are paying off. Earlier this month, Kim Strach of the state Board of Elections issued an emergency do-not-destroy order for voting records to all counties. Without it, current investigations into voter fraud would be impossible after September.