North Carolina: Chief justice gives critics of election maps a week to respond | McClatchy DC

North Carolina’s civil war over its election map will stretch on for at least another week – raising more questions about whether the state’s March 15 primary takes place as scheduled. Tuesday night, Gov. Pat McCrory and other state leaders asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to set aside a lower court order that found portions of the state’s congressional district map unconstitutional. The three-judge panel also gave the state until a week from Friday to come up with a new map. Wednesday afternoon, Roberts responded. He gave the plaintiffs in the case, including retired Charlotte-Mecklenburg school teacher Christine Bowser, until next Tuesday to respond to the state’s request for a delay. State lawyers have argued that with the primary about a month away – and with absentee ballots already being returned – any changes will throw the upcoming election into turmoil. Yet without any guarantees on when and how Roberts or the full court will rule, McCrory may be compelled to call the legislature into special session next week to meet the lower court deadline for new maps. “The timing of this process practically means the state needs to prepare ... a new map, just in case the (earlier) order is upheld,” said Kareem Clayton, a Vanderbilt University election law expert who has followed the North Carolina case.

North Carolina: She’s 86. She can’t get a photo ID. Look at the voter fraud we’ve prevented | The Charlotte Observer

Reba Bowser seems like the kind of person North Carolina Republicans might want on their side this November. She’s 86 years old. She’s a staunch Republican. She’s been a faithful voter since the Eisenhower administration, missing only the most recent election after moving from New Hampshire to western North Carolina to be close to her son’s family. “Both my parents, they voted in every election,” that son, Ed Bowser, says. “My grandparents did, too. They took this seriously.” So this month, with the North Carolina primary approaching, Reba wanted to make sure she could vote again. She needed to register, and she needed a valid photo ID, because beginning this year, North Carolina is requiring one to vote. Last week, Ed helped her gather the papers the state said she needed for that ID. They decided to make an event of the process – a celebration of democracy. They went out to lunch. They filled out her voter registration form. They took a happy photo. On Monday, they went to the Department of Motor Vehicles in west Asheville. There, they laid out all of Reba’s paperwork for a DMV official – her birth record from Pennsylvania, her Social Security card, the New Hampshire driver’s license she let expire because she no longer wanted to drive. But there was a problem. When Reba got married in 1950, she had her name legally changed. Like millions upon millions of women, she swapped out her middle name for her maiden name.

North Carolina: Lawmakers file appeal of congressional districts ruling | News & Observer

North Carolina leaders filed an emergency appeal Monday to overturn a federal court order that threw out the boundaries of two congressional districts and injected major uncertainty into the state’s March 15 primary. The motion was filed with the same three federal judges who found portions of the state voting map unconstitutional on Friday. State Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Matthews, who helped draw the district lines, said voting is already underway and should not be undermined by the courts. The state called for a response from the court on Monday. “We trust the federal trial court was not aware an election was already underway and surely did not intend to throw our state into chaos by nullifying ballots that have already been sent out and votes that have already been cast,” Rucho said in a statement. Later Monday, the judges gave the plaintiffs in the case, including two from Mecklenburg County, until noon Tuesday to respond.

North Carolina: Questions abound after judges invalidate 2 congressional districts | The Charlotte Observer

The day after a panel of federal judges invalidated two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts, state elections officials were working on a Saturday afternoon to encourage voters with absentee ballots to vote the full ballot anyway. Kim Strach, executive director of the N.C. Board of Elections, and Josh Lawson, general counsel for the board, said Saturday that they did not want voters who received the 8,611 absentee ballots sent out for the March 15 primary elections to lose an opportunity to vote. “The number one message we want to get out is we want voters to continue voting,” Strach said Saturday afternoon. Late on Friday, a three-judge panel ruled that North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts were racial gerrymanders and ordered them redrawn by Feb. 19. Though the ruling halts elections in those districts until new maps are approved, questions remained on Saturday about what that would mean for other congressional races on the primary ballots.

North Carolina: Federal court invalidates maps of two congressional districts | News & Observer

A federal court panel ruled late Friday that two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts were racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn within two weeks, sparking uncertainty about whether the March primary elections can proceed as planned. An order from a three-judge panel bars elections in North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts until new maps are approved. Challengers of North Carolina’s 2011 redistricting plan quickly praised the ruling, while legislators who helped design the maps said they were disappointed and promised a quick appeal. “This ruling by all three judges is a vindication of our challenge to the General Assembly of North Carolina writing racially biased ‘apartheid’ voting districts to disenfranchise the power of the African-vote,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter.

North Carolina: Does voter ID law suppress minority votes? A federal judge will decide. | Los Angeles Times

Coming of age in the Jim Crow South, Rosanell Eaton was one of the first African Americans to register to vote in her rural corner of North Carolina. After riding for two hours to the county courthouse on a mule-drawn wagon, the granddaughter of a slave was forced to take a literacy test—reciting the preamble of the U.S. Constitution—before she could vote. Seventy years later, the 94-year-old is at the center of a new struggle as the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to overturn North Carolina’s voter identification law, which requires most voters to show an approved form of photo ID at the polls. While supporters of the new law, which came into effect January, say it provides a bulwark against potential election fraud and is a minor administrative hassle that applies equally to all, critics contend that it disproportionately burdens African American and Latino voters, and that Republican legislators intentionally drafted it to obstruct minority voting. The six-day trial wrapped up Monday, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is not expected to hand down a verdict before voters go to the polls for the state's March 15 presidential primary.

North Carolina: State NAACP to redouble efforts to get out vote in light of photo ID requirement | Winston-Salem Journal

A day after a federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID voting requirement wrapped up, the president of North Carolina chapter of the NAACP announced a massive effort to register voters across the state. The Rev. William Barber said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that it is imperative that he and others do everything they can to make sure every voter is able to cast a ballot in the March primaries. Early voting for the primary starts March 3. “On today, we understand that we must fight to overcome burdens as we fight to undue those burdens,” he said.
Monday marked the end of a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem over the requirement, which took effect this year, that voters show a photo ID at the polls.

North Carolina: Closing Arguments Given in Key Voter Rights Trial | The New York Times

In the final session of a trial that could yield a crucial decision about a policy that has been disputed for years, a federal judge heard closing arguments on Monday about North Carolina’s voter identification law. The arguments capped a six-day bench trial, before Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court, that included emotional testimony about voting rights and technical analyses of the law’s impact. The outcome will be seen as an important measure of what voting-related laws federal courts might allow states to pursue and enforce. The North Carolina chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. and other plaintiffs argued Monday, as they have for months, that the Republican-controlled General Assembly drafted the voter identification law in 2013 as a surreptitious way to curb the influence of black and Hispanic voters. The N.A.A.C.P. has argued that those voters are less likely to have one of the six accepted forms of identification required and often face more hardship in obtaining them. “They knew that all these provisions, taken individually and together, have racially discriminatory intent,” said Catherine Meza, a lawyer for the United States Justice Department, which joined the N.A.A.C.P. in the litigation.

North Carolina: Legislature ‘intentionally passed’ discriminatory voter ID law, lawyer says | The Guardian

The North Carolina legislature “intentionally passed a law that would discriminate against African Americans and Latinos”, an attorney told a federal judge on Monday in a case that could have broad implications for the 2016 election. The federal court in Winston Salem heard closing arguments in a trial over the state’s newly implemented voter identification law. The rule, which went into effect on 1 January, requires citizens to show state-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. The challenge to the law, led by the state chapters of the NAACP and League of Women Voters as well as the US Department of Justice, argued that the requirements were racially discriminatory to black and Latino citizens who are less likely to have photo ID or the means to acquire it. North Carolina is just one of 15 states where restrictive new voting laws will go into effect for the 2016 election and are forecast to disproportionately disenfranchise black and Latino Americans. The proceedings were the latest in the convoluted legal battle that has been unfolding in North Carolina since the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed HB 589 in July 2013. As well as mandating voter ID, the law significantly shortened the window for early voting, prevented citizens from voting outside their district, ended the preregistration of 17-year-olds, and stopped same-day registration, where voters register on the same day they cast a ballot.

North Carolina: Voter ID trial ends; decision is now up to federal judge | Winston-Salem Journal

In closing arguments Monday, North Carolina’s photo ID requirement was described by attorneys for the North Carolina NAACP as a racially discriminatory law that places unconstitutional burdens on blacks and Hispanics. Attorneys representing Gov. Pat McCrory and state elections officials called the change in the law a mere inconvenience, saying it would affect a small group of people. Penda Hair, an attorney for the N.C. NAACP, said evidence presented during the trial clearly shows that the photo ID requirement would make it harder for blacks and Hispanics to cast ballots in this year’s election. It’s undisputed, she said, that blacks disproportionately lack the kinds of photo IDs that they would need to show when they come to the polls.

North Carolina: Federal trial on voter ID expected to wrap up Monday | Winston-Salem Journal

Closing arguments in a closely watched federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voting will be Monday. Friday marked the first full day of evidence from attorneys defending state elections officials, state Republican legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory over the voter ID requirement that went into effect this year. The requirement is part of the state’s Voter Information Verification Act that legislators passed and McCrory signed into law in 2013. The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others filed a federal lawsuit over the provisions of the law, alleging that they are unconstitutional and violate the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. The plaintiffs allege two things: that the law — including the photo ID requirement — puts undue burdens on black and Hispanic voters, and that state Republican legislators had discriminatory intent in passing the legislation.

North Carolina: Closing arguments set in voter ID trial | News & Observer

For the past week, attorneys arguing for and against North Carolina’s new voter ID law at the federal trial in Winston-Salem have raised and knocked down the specter of voter fraud. The rule – that North Carolina voters show one of six photo identification cards before casting a ballot – was adopted in 2013. Republicans who had won control that year of both General Assembly chambers and the governor’s office touted the elections law overhaul as a way to preserve the integrity of one person, one vote.

North Carolina: Is North Carolina’s Strict Voter-ID Law Constitutional? | The Atlantic

Lawyers and advocates were back in a courtroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Monday, for a second challenge to the state’s strict new voting laws. A group of plaintiffs, led by the NAACP and the Department of Justice, is seeking to overturn a new rule, which is set to take effect in March’s primaries, requiring voters to present a photo ID before voting. The voter-ID law was one of several major changes made by Republicans who control the Old North State’s government, in a 2013 law passed shortly after the Supreme Court struck down a clause in the Voting Rights Act that required some states to seek approval of changes to voting laws from the Justice Department. In addition to requiring a photo ID to vote, the new rules reduced early voting; ended same-day voter registration; banned the practice of casting ballots out of precinct; and ended pre-registration for teens. Proponents said the laws were essential to guarantee the integrity of the state’s elections. A group of plaintiffs sued the state, alleging that the changes would suppress minority votes and that they represented the return of Jim Crow to the South. In July, federal district-court Judge Thomas Schroeder heard a challenge to some of those provisions, but not to the voter-ID law.

North Carolina: NAACP lawyers grill elections director in trial over photo IDs | Winston-Salem Journal

After four days of testimony, the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice rested their case Thursday in a federal trial challenging North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voting. Their last witness was Kim Strach, the state’s elections director. It was through sharp questioning of Strach that plaintiffs argued that state elections officials had failed to educate the public about a recent amendment to the photo ID requirement that state Republican legislators passed last June. The amendment allows voters who don’t have photo ID to fill out and sign a “reasonable impediment” declaration form. That form has examples of reasons why voters weren’t able to get one of six acceptable photo IDs, including lack of transportation, work schedule or not having the necessary underlying documents, such as a birth certificate. After filling out the form, voters will get to cast a provisional ballot that will be counted later after their reasons are verified.

North Carolina: Voter ID law on trial | MSNBC

Does North Carolina’s voter ID law illegally discriminate against African-Americans and Latinos? That question is at the center of a trial over the law held this week in a federal courtroom in Winston-Salem. If the law is upheld, it could make voting harder this fall in the Tar Heel State, which figures to be pivotal in the presidential race. And it could give a green light to other states considering similarly restrictive voting laws. During the first two days of the trial Monday and Tuesday, the law’s challengers aimed to show that racial minorities are more likely than whites to lack acceptable ID; that there’s no significant voter fraud of the kind that could stopped by the ID requirement; and that the state hasn’t done enough to educate voters about the law.

North Carolina: Witness: Cultural differences cause voter ID headaches | Winston-Salem Journal

In 2007, Maria del Carmen Sanchez was told she couldn’t renew her driver’s license because the name didn’t match the one on her U.S. passport. Then state officials offered this solution: Get a divorce, she said in a videotaped deposition played Wednesday during the federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement. It took a week before Sanchez was finally told she could simply fill out a name change form to get her driver’s license. But based on that experience, Sanchez said she thinks many Hispanics will face similar problems when they try to obtain a photo ID to vote in this year’s election. The photo ID requirement, which became law in 2013, didn’t take effect until this year.

North Carolina: Arguments Over North Carolina Voter ID Law Begin in Federal Court | The New York Times

The bitter dispute about North Carolina’s elections laws returned to a federal courtroom here on Monday as the state’s voter identification requirement went on trial. The week’s proceedings will affect election practices in North Carolina, a state that has been closely contested in recent years and where voting rules could play a part in deciding tight elections, from local races to the 15 electoral votes for president. Court rulings here could also provide an early glimpse at how the federal courts might examine balloting laws in the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision that, in 2013, upended a significant component of the Voting Rights Act. “The North Carolina litigation is the leading litigation in the post-Shelby world,” said Edward B. Foley, an elections law expert at Ohio State University, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama, v. Holder. “It’s the test case, the battleground case more than any other.” The trial about North Carolina’s identification standard, which requires voters to produce one of six accepted credentials or to submit a provisional ballot, is included in a broader challenge of the election law changes that the state’s Republican-dominated legislature first approved in 2013. Then, as now, supporters of the alterations to voting procedures described them as safeguards against potential fraud, but critics condemned them as thinly veiled efforts to throw up barriers, particularly to black and Hispanic voters.

North Carolina: Professor questions legislators’ claims that Voter ID law aimed to prevent fraud | News & Observer

A Wisconsin political science professor told a federal judge Monday that if North Carolina legislators were worried about voter fraud, he thought they would have focused more attention on the process for casting absentee ballots. Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led legislature that shepherded the state's new voter ID requirement into law have touted the measure as one necessary to prevent voter fraud and preserve the integrity of elections. Barry Burden, from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, testified as a witness for voters and organizations challenging the voter ID law. His research focuses on election administration, voting behavior and civic engagement. The director of the Wisconsin university’s newly created Elections Research Center, offered his opinions on the first day of a federal trial about whether it is lawful to require N.C. voters to present photo identification to cast a ballot in local, state and national elections.

North Carolina: Controversial voter ID law goes on trial; nation watches | Winston-Salem Journal

Rosanell Eaton, 94, has been a registered voter for more than 70 years. As a black woman growing up in the Jim Crow South, she had to read the preamble of the U.S. Constitution in order to register to vote. Last year, she was forced to make 10 trips to the N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles and other state offices so she could vote in this year’s elections. That’s because of North Carolina’s new photo ID requirement, which goes into effect this election cycle. According to attorneys with the N.C. NAACP, the new requirement forced Eaton to spend more than 20 hours to obtain a photo ID. Her name was spelled differently on the other forms of identification that she needed for a photo ID. Eaton’s experience will be included in the evidence that attorneys for the state NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others will present during a weeklong trial starting Monday in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem. The trial is the second one in less than a year that challenges North Carolina’s state elections law that was passed in 2013. The first trial was in July and centered on other provisions of the law, including the reduction of days for early voting from 17 to 10 and the elimination of same-day voter registration.

North Carolina: Battle over voting rights restrictions moves to North Carolina | The Guardian

The latest round in the nationwide battle to defend the historic gains of the civil rights movement opens in a federal courtroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Monday where Republican politicians will be accused of blatantly attempting to discourage African Americans from voting. The local chapter of the NAACP is taking the Republican state governor, Pat McCrory, to court over a new rule that requires citizens who turn up at polling stations either to produce a photo-ID card or give a “reasonable” excuse for lacking one before they can cast a ballot. The NAACP argues that the new law places a burden on voters that is unconstitutional as it overtly discriminates against black citizens who are less likely to have access to such photo identification. “We see this as a fundamental attack on our democracy which we are fighting with everything we have,” said the Rev William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “Extremists in the North Carolina legislature have been working feverishly to keep African Americans, Latino families, students and seniors from the ballot box.” Voting rights promises to be a running cause of friction in the 2016 presidential election cycle. Republican-led states have rushed to introduce restrictions in the wake of the US supreme court’s 2013 decision, Shelby County v Holder, that dramatically weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

North Carolina: Same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting back – for now | Winston-Salem Journal

North Carolina voters again have two options for casting ballots in the March primary that were repealed for 2014 elections — at least for now. The General Assembly had stopped allowing people to register to vote and cast ballots on the same day during the early-voting period. And they also decided that the votes of people who went to the wrong precinct on election day would no longer be counted. But those changes were put on hold until a trial court judge rules on challenges that have been filed against them. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling confirmed that delay last April, but it’s gotten more attention recently as the primary nears. Same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting were used by more than 100,000 people the last time they were permitted in statewide elections, in November 2012.

North Carolina: Voter-ID Law Goes on Trial in Federal Court | Wall Street Journal

The legality of a 2013 North Carolina law requiring identification to vote will be challenged in a trial set to begin in federal court Monday ahead of March U.S. presidential primaries in the state. The trial in Winston-Salem, the second to stem from the law, is one of several closely watched voting-rights lawsuits unfolding as the election season gets under way. In 2013, Republican Gov. Patrick McCrory signed a law barring people without photo identification from voting. The move sparked a number of lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others that were eventually consolidated into one suit claiming that the law disproportionately affected black and other minority voters who are less likely to have access to birth certificates and other documents needed to obtain photo identification.

North Carolina: Voter ID Laws Back in Spotlight in North Carolina Case | VoA News

A federal court is scheduled to hear a legal challenge to North Carolina’s Voter ID law on Monday. The law, H.B. 589, enacted in August 2013 shortens the early voting period by one week, eliminates same day registration, requires specific forms of identification to vote, and cancels a pre-registration program for 16 and 17-year-olds. … Restrictive voter laws have been a controversial issue for the last two presidential elections. More than 32 states have voter ID laws or restrictive measures of some form. North Carolina is scheduled to join them in 2016. All of the new measures have been introduced and implemented by Republican-led state legislatures and governors. Supporters say the laws are necessary to battle fraud and build confidence in the electoral process. Critics argue the laws disproportionately discourage minorities, the poor, senior citizens and young people – those who are more likely to vote Democratic – from voting.

North Carolina: Lawyers return to court to argue voter ID case | Digital Journal

The legal battle over a new law requiring North Carolina voters to show a photo ID at the polls will head to federal court on Monday, just six weeks before early voting is set to begin in the state's presidential primary. The photo ID requirement is perhaps the best-known provision of the Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA), a sweeping overhaul of North Carolina election law signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory in August 2013. Beginning in 2016, it requires voters to show one of government-issued photo IDs in order to vote, or sign an affidavit stating a "reasonable impediment" prevented them from getting an ID. Attorneys representing the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP are suing to overturn ID requirement, claiming it creates an unfair burden for poor, elderly and minority voters.

North Carolina: Judge refuses to halt voter ID requirement in March election | News & Observer

A federal judge refused Friday to block North Carolina's photo identification requirement to vote in person from taking effect with the March 15 primary elections. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroder's ruling denying the preliminary injunction motion of the state NAACP and allied voters likely ensures that voter ID will be implemented for the first time on schedule. A trial on whether the ID law is legal will be held Jan. 25 and last several days. The Republican-led General Assembly passed an elections overhaul law in 2013 containing the mandate but deferred its start until the first election in 2016 to give people time to learn about the requirement and to obtain one of several forms of qualifying ID. The law has been in the courts ever since, including three federal lawsuits that have been consolidated into one case.

North Carolina: Elections board called out for confusing the public on voter ID | Facing South

"You can vote with or without a North Carolina driver's license or other photo ID." That was the refrain that Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, returned to again and again during a press conference held this week to clarify state voter ID rules for the upcoming election. His group has accused the state elections board of distributing misleading information about the ID requirement. "We are deeply, deeply concerned with the message that's going out from our State Board of Elections," Barber said. "What we've seen happening is at best disingenuous, and at worst a cynical attempt to further suppress the vote." The controversy goes back to 2013, when a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakening the Voting Rights Act enabled the North Carolina legislature to pass a restrictive voting law that among other things required citizens to show one of several approved photo IDs before being allowed to vote. The NAACP and other civil rights groups sued the state over the law’s constitutionality, with the federal trial on the ID requirements set to start on Jan. 25 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

North Carolina: Judge denies state NAACP’s request to delay Voter ID trial | Winston-Salem Journal

A federal judge ruled Friday that North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voting will be in effect for the March 15 primary election. U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder denied a motion filed by the North Carolina NAACP for a preliminary injunction, saying that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the photo ID would place an undue burdens on blacks and Hispanics and had failed to prove they would likely prevail on the merits of their case in a trial set for Jan. 25. The changes that Republican state legislators made to the photo ID requirement last year, particularly allowing voters without an ID to sign a “reasonable impediment declaration” and then cast a provisional ballot, played a key role in Schroeder’s decision. “When the State did not have a reasonable impediment exception, NAACP Plaintiffs claimed the burden imposed on the socioeconomically disadvantaged was too severe,” he wrote in his decision. “Now that the State has sought to accommodate these voters with the reasonable impediment exception, Plaintiffs claim the exception swallows the rule and that the State need not have a photo ID requirement.”

North Carolina: NC board, NAACP deliver conflicting messages on voter ID | News & Observer

The state NAACP wants voters to know that there are ways to cast a ballot this year even without photo identification, but the State Board of Elections is worried that the group’s message is misleading. The state law requiring a photo ID, which goes into effect this year, allows voters without an ID to cast provisional ballots after they sign “reasonable impediment” forms saying why they couldn’t get one. The Rev. William Barber, state NAACP president, said in an interview that the Board of Elections’ education campaign, which stresses that voters should bring IDs, sends “clouded, unclear messages” because it buries information about the “reasonable impediment declaration.” “Our lawyers are deeply concerned that they have, at best, misdirected the voters because they are not saying what the law says,” Barber said. Barber and other NAACP representatives held a news conference this week to publicize its views. “You can vote with or without a photo ID,” he said.

North Carolina: NAACP: Postpone voter ID trial until after primaries | Winston-Salem Journal

The N.C. NAACP is asking a federal judge to postpone a trial on the state’s photo ID requirement until after the March 15 primary, according to court documents filed Tuesday. The trial is set to start Jan. 25 in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem. The state NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others sued North Carolina and Gov. Pat McCrory in 2013 after state Republican legislators passed a controversial sweeping elections law known as the Voter Information Verification Act. Part of that law required people to show a photo ID this year when they cast their ballots.

North Carolina: Voting may take longer without straight-party option | Greensboro News & Record

Last week, Michigan became the latest state to eliminate straight-party voting. The action was contentious because it was political. “The vast majority of clerks around the state and Democrats in the Legislature opposed the bill because they feel it will create confusion at the polls and dramatically lengthen lines at polling precincts, especially in urban areas where hours-long waits are already not unusual,” the Detroit Free Press reported. North Carolina has gone that route, but without much fuss ... so far. A barely noticed provision on page 38 of a 49-page election reform bill passed in 2013 eliminated straight-party voting (SPV). More attention was paid to changes in early voting and the requirement that voters present photo identification at the polls. Although there was no question about the legality of killing SPV, the move was politically risky. Voting for all the Democrats or all the Republicans on the ballot in a single stroke had been a hugely popular convenience for many decades in North Carolina.