Reports of missing registrations in North Carolina are coming into the Election Protection hotline from voters who tried to register through the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Allison Riggs, senior attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the reports are coming in from throughout the state, but for now it is hard to judge the exact number. “It could be thousands, but probably not tens of thousands,” she said.

After a federal court order on the first day of early voting, the state Board of Elections issued new paperwork to allow voters who tried to register through the DMV to use provisional ballots. Riggs said that should help protect the ballots — but not if voters are turned away or not offered the new forms.

“It’s seeming to us that some poll workers are not up to speed on that,” Riggs said. Some voters, she said, aren’t getting the new forms.

Voting rights advocates have been pushing for improvements to the department’s efforts for more than a year.

A hotline team of lawyers, election advocates and law students at the University of North Carolina Law School is tracking dozens of voting issues, including some isolated calls on intimidation, Riggs said. Like during the early voting period, the number of calls is up from prior elections.

“It’s still a relatively small percentage of all of the calls we get, but it was an even smaller percentage in previous years.”

The hotline team is also tracking down the consequences of this morning’s technical problems with electronic voter roles in Durham County. Voters are being checked in using paper voter lists.