By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-24 19:01:40 | Updated at 2024-11-24 21:53:55
2 hours ago
The Surprising Impact of North Carolina’s New Voter ID Law
The New York Times ^ | Nov. 23, 2024 | Michael Wines
Posted on 11/24/2024 10:59:25 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
After more than a decade of court battles and legislative jousting over voting rules, North Carolina this month held its first general election under its new voter ID law.
And unlike the pitched battles of the past, it felt like a fight that had largely been fought to a draw, with a more muted ID requirement, and very few ballots that were disqualified.
In 2013, when North Carolina’s Republican-run State Legislature first required voters to pull out a photo ID card before casting a ballot, it stirred a hornet’s nest of protest that the real goal was to keep nonwhite, mostly Democratic, voters from the polls.
Years of litigation followed. When a federal court struck down the law in 2016, the opinion highlighted the ID requirement as one of several provisions that targeted Black voters “with almost surgical precision.”
This month, voters cast 5.7 million ballots under a new Republican-written voter ID law. How things have changed: Now, North Carolina’s law is being criticized by some on the right as too weak and porous, though the vote went smoothly.
The law — approved in 2018 but stalled by court battles until last year — requires both in-person and mail voters to show proof of identity. That departs from most laws that require an ID only at the polls.
But unlike the 2013 law, it offers voters an array of acceptable ID cards, from drivers licenses to student IDs to free state ID cards. If voters have no ID — older people who do not have a driver’s license and mail voters who do not have printers to copy their IDs, among many others — they can ensure their ballots count with the affidavit of explanation, or can show an ID later at a local elections office.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
TOPICS: Humor
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