Medicaid deal goes to governor + Why 34,000 deceased were found on voter rolls
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawmakers gave final approval to a GOP Medicaid bill providing $319 million through June.
- State identified roughly 34,000 deceased individuals using a federal system.
- Democrats file bill barring schools from collecting immigration status and more.
Good morning and welcome to our daily roundup of state politics news, brought to you today by Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi.
It was another busy day at the legislature.
Lawmakers on Tuesday gave final approval to a GOP-drafted Medicaid bill providing $319 million in additional funding needed to keep the state’s Medicaid program running through June. The bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk. The bill includes much more than just funding, though, and some Democratic lawmakers used Tuesday’s floor time to flag provisions they opposed. You can read my story on that here.
Apart from the vote on Medicaid, lawmakers scrapped a bill that would have allowed Franklin County to take over property in Vance, Warren or Halifax counties without the consent of county commissioners. Read my colleague Kyle Ingram’s story on that bill.
Kyle also gave me an assist today with a report on deceased individuals found on voter rolls. Read on:
NC election board identifies 34,000 deceased on voter rolls
North Carolina election officials on Monday said they identified roughly 34,000 deceased individuals on the state’s voter rolls after entering into a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to conduct list maintenance.
“While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a statement. “The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible.”
The presence of dead individuals on the rolls does not mean that illegal votes were cast in their name. While the state Department of Health and Human Services provides regular death updates to the State Board of Elections, some deaths may go unreported if an individual moves to another state.
The deceased individuals were uncovered using the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, which is housed within DHS.
In a split vote earlier this month, the State Board of Elections’ Republican majority formalized an agreement with the agency to use SAVE to find alleged noncitizens on the voter rolls.
Democrats objected to the agreement, noting that SAVE has documented issues with incorrectly identifying people as noncitizens.
Republicans countered that their agreement includes adequate due process for voters accused of being noncitizens to prove their eligibility before having their registration cancelled.
Democrats file immigration bills
Earlier in the day, Democrats held a press conference on legislation addressing immigration enforcement in public schools.
The bill, dubbed the “Plyler Educational Protections Act,” would prohibit schools from collecting immigration status information except when required by a subpoena, establish staff training requirements and require parents be notified when agents access children’s records, among other things. It is named after a landmark Supreme Court decision that established immigrant children’s right to a public education.
Rep. Julia Greenfield, a Charlotte Democrat and bill sponsor, said that after the immigration enforcement surge in November dubbed Operation Charlotte’s Web, 27,000 students — or 1 in 5 — were absent in a single day in her hometown of Charlotte.
“When fear enters a community, as we have all witnessed firsthand, school attendance drops, academic performance suffers, trust between families and institutions begins to break down. Classrooms feel it. Entire communities feel it. This isn’t just about immigration. It’s about public education, children’s well-being and our moral responsibility,” she said.
In the time since the federal operation, said Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat, “There’s a new tactic, and it is not a mass presence,” but “kids are still being taken, there are still parents being taken from their homes, but it is much more dispersed so that big attention isn’t there.”
Bekah Brown, policy specialist at Education Justice Alliance, said that in 2025, Tennessee attempted to pass a bill to refuse enrollment to undocumented children, but that the effort was stopped after public outcry. This year, she said, legislators filed a new bill requiring public schools to collect and report the immigration status of students.
“This was not a one-off. In 2025, at least six states introduced bills to deny enrollment, check immigration status, or charge tuition to undocumented children,” she said. “This is a coordinated national effort to look at children and ask them, ‘Do you deserve to be here?’”
Greenfield said Democrats have also filed a bill asking the state attorney general, currently a Democrat, to investigate incidents of people being harmed or killed while in federal immigration custody, and another delineating rules for when and how local law enforcement may cooperate with federal immigration officials.
The bills face long odds in the Republican-controlled legislature, but Greenfield said Democrats winning more seats in November would improve their chances.
Headlines you won’t want to miss
- Two NC lawmakers left the Democrats. Here’s how the political parties reacted
- Ex-FBI director Comey indicted in NC over claim that he threatened to kill Trump
- Mark Walker leaves religious freedom position Trump created for him after 90 days
- NC State Health Plan expects to spend $1 billion more than planned. Here’s why
- NC lawmakers used campaign money on travel, food and rent. See top spenders
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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Medicaid deal goes to governor + Why 34,000 deceased were found on voter rolls."
