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A report in the New York Times this morning saying that North Carolina is improperly using Social Security numbers to vet voters was called "very misleading" by the state's chief election official this morning.

The Times story said that North Carolina had been warned that it was checking an abnormally large number of social security numbers against a federal database and that federal officials were worried the state could be improperly excluding voters.

But Elections Director Gary Bartlett said Social Security numbers were only being checked in the case where a driver's license or other acceptable form of identification has not been provided.

"We believe we're in full compliance and they're providing misinformation and stirring up the public, and that is not good," Bartlett said. The story, he said, has caused a nonstop stream of calls and e-mails to his office this morning.

North Carolina has registered more than 700,000 new voters since the beginning of the year and may top 800,000 by Nov. 1. Of those, about 400,000 have been run through the federal Social Security database.

The state, Bartlett said, had a high number of universities, military personnel and businesses that bring people in from out of state. Often those people don't have driver's licenses when they register to vote and therefore use their Social Security number to verify their identity.

No one is denied registration if their Social Security number does not match, said Bartlett and local elections officials.

"The worse case scenario is they show ID at the polls when they show up," said Charlie Collicutt, deputy elections director in Guilford County.

If a voter still doesn't have identification on Election Day, Bartlett said, they would be allowed to vote a provisional ballot that would be counted once their identity is confirmed.

Names are not removed from the voter rolls based on a Social Security number mismatch, said both state and county officials.

Bartlett said the state was contacted by neither the New York Times nor federal officials and today's story was a surprise.

"No one has called us, no one has suggested we're not in compliance," Bartlett said.