Intra-County Moves and Fail-Safe Voting Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993

Residential mobility can reduce the accuracy of voter registration lists and impede voters’ ability to cast ballots. However, Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 offers a partial remedy to these challenges through fail-safe voting. This provision allows registered voters who move within their election jurisdiction without updating their address to correct their registration and vote on Election Day. Thus, fail-safe voting acts as a county-level form of portable voter registration. Despite its potential to improve list accuracy and expand voter eligibility, fail-safe voting is underexplored in the election administration literature. I address this gap by examining fail-safe voting use in North Carolina. I find that 18,000–24,000 individuals used fail-safe voting in each of the 2020, 2022, and 2024 general elections. Highly mobile voters, such as younger and minority individuals, are more likely to rely on fail-safe voting.