What happens when voter-registration officials get updates on death certificates and records from other states? In North Carolina, they find massive voter fraud. As many as 35,000 North Carolina voters may have voted in another state in the 2012 election, and Republicans are claiming vindication for their efforts to tighten voter-ID checks:

The audit showed 155,692 registered North Carolina voters whose first and last names, dates of birth and last four digits of their Social Security number match those of voters registered in other states, but who most recently registered or voted elsewhere.

A total of 35,750 voters with matching first and last names and date of birth were registered in North Carolina and another state, and voted in both states in the 2012 general election.

Another 765 voters with an exact match of first and last name, date of birth and last four digits of their Social Security number were registered and voted in the 2012 general election in North Carolina and another state.

“We have fraud and error vulnerabilities in our election system. The fact that we potentially have thousands of people voting in more than one state greatly concerns me,” said Rep. David Lewis, chairman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee and the lead author of the Voter Identification and Verification Act.

Another 81 voters are confirmed to have “voted” after the date of their death in 2012. That’s a pretty neat trick, one usually not seen outside the confines of Chicago. The issue of voter-ID requirements was the topic of a New York Times article this week, which Jazz Shaw criticized for its assumption that the law was designed to make it harder for people to vote. Perhaps this data will have them reconsidering their editorial spin on the story … but don’t bet on it.

The actual number of these cases may decline downward from 35,750, as they may contain genuine coincidences and some errors in data entry. But the scope of the matches suggest that the final number won’t be limited to three digits, either. Guy Benson says this is part of a pattern emerging from the lack of competent protections against fraud at the ballot box:

Several weeks ago, we highlighted a 2012 report out of Florida in which a local reporter took it upon himself to use a single, extremely narrow method to ferret out voter fraud. By cross-referencing Florida’s voter rolls with jury duty cards on which people had checked a box declining to serve due to their non-citizen status, the NBC correspondent pinpointed nearly 100 ineligible voters in his county alone. Several admitted on camera to (a) not being US citizens, and (b) voting in US elections. “I vote every year!” one woman boasted. Last week, the California State Senate voted to suspend three Democratic members, one of whom was recently convicted of eight felonies, including multiple counts of voter fraud. Yet the “myth” of voter fraud remains solidly ensconced within the Left’s political catechism. Voter fraud undeniably exists. The extent to which it exists remains unclear, as the stunning results of North Carolina’s audit demonstrate. Voter ID laws reflect common sense, are constitutional, and are overwhelmingly popular. I’ll leave you with the Democrat Party Chairwoman openly celebrating a court decision that halted a Republican-initiated effort to purge a swing state’s voter rolls of ineligible and non-citizen voters. She tweeted this hours before the North Carolina story broke:

Big win in #Florida for those of us who want MORE participation, not less. #voterexpansion http://t.co/q76Y23oCcu pic.twitter.com/gYdPIF9QO6

— Debbie Wasserman Schultz (@DWStweets) April 2, 2014

Democrats want “more participation, not less” — even if that increased participation results in fraud that undermines our electoral system, apparently. I wonder why?

Perhaps they should start answering that question. And maybe the cross-checks should involve all 50 states, and not just the 28 that participated in this audit.