North Carolina: Road Worrier: Photo IDs, new for NC voters, are a big business for DMV | News Observer

North Carolina’s strict new voting law, which takes effect starting with elections in 2016, will make the state Division of Motor Vehicles a prime source of photo identification cards for non-drivers who want to vote. It turns out that photo IDs already are a big business for DMV. More than 1.1 million North Carolinians have valid DMV-issued photo IDs (which expire after 5 years), compared to 6.7 million with state driver’s licenses. Last year more than 270,000 people provided the necessary stack of documents, posed for the camera and, in most cases, paid a $10 fee. Why did they want these photo IDs? For any of the reasons anybody might be asked to prove his or her identity, of course: To get a loan or cash a check, to satisfy a curious police officer, to receive some kinds of government services, to get a job. Some of the folks who got DMV IDs are ex-drivers who surrendered their licenses because of age or illness. Many are too young to drive (8,671 of them last year were under 15 years old). And 122 of these were less than 1 year old – too young even to walk. “There are a lot of lap babies in our database,” said Marge Howell, a DMV spokeswoman. “A lot of people come in to get these ID cards for their children. Sometimes, as the child grows, they’ll come back to get progressive photographs to show that growth.”

North Carolina: Voter bill could mean longer lines | Daily Journal

North Carolina’s new voter law is drawing national attention, but what are the local implications? North Carolina’s governor on Monday quietly signed a measure into law that overhauls the state’s election laws to require government-issued photo IDs at the polls and to shorten early voting, moves that drew stinging criticism and threats of legal action from the NAACP and other groups. According to the bill, voters will see the elimination of the straight-party voting option and same-day registration. Absentee ballots will gain some flexibility, but some say this could increase the chances of fraud. Lee Quick, chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party, is not fond of the new law and said it will lengthen voting day poll lines and inconvenience voters who don’t have an ID.

North Carolina: Lawmakers meet raucous crowd at Charlotte forum | Charlotte Observer

Reflecting the tensions that marked North Carolina’s legislative session, seven Mecklenburg lawmakers sparred with each other and their audience Wednesday night over the new voting law, education spending and Charlotte’s airport. In a lively exchange at the forum sponsored by the Observer and PNC Bank, lawmakers answered questions about what guest host Mike Collins called a “tumultuous” session. The panel’s four Republicans often found themselves on the defensive before a sometimes raucous audience at Central Piedmont Community College.

North Carolina: New North Carolina law could discourage participation by young voters | The Voter Update

Gov. Pat McCrory signed a sweeping elections overhaul bill on Aug. 12, and on Sept. 1 one of the first provisions of that new law will go into effect. Beginning on that day, 16- and 17-year-olds will no longer be allowed to pre-register to vote. North Carolina implemented voter pre-registration in 2010 after being passed by the General Assembly with broad, bipartisan support. Through the program, 16- and 17-year-olds could “pre-register” to vote, which didn’t lower the voting age but meant these young people would be automatically added to the voter rolls when they turned 18. Since many teens are going to the DMV to get a driver’s license during this time, it was convenient to offer them the opportunity to pre-register to vote as well. Students are also being taught civics in high school at this age, which seemed like an appropriate time to translate the abstracts of lesson plans into a real-world activity like pre-registering to vote. In the end, the goal was to encourage teens to get involved in the voting process at an early age and hopefully instill in them an interest and passion for civic engagement.

North Carolina: House GOP Hopeful Compares N.C. Voter ID Law to Excrement | Roll Call

Jason Thigpen, a political newcomer looking to unseat Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., has parted company with his fellow Tar Heel State Republicans over a voter ID change he insists just plain stinks. “You can paint a turd and sell it as art, but it’s still a turd,” Thigpen asserted in a Facebook postdenouncing the election tweaks that state lawmakers approved in late July. North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed the new restrictions — which mandate voters to show a government-issued ID, trims the early voting window by a week and abolishes same-day registration — into law on Aug. 12. “This is 2013 and any legislator that puts forth such a discriminatory bill should be laughed out of office. This is America, not Russia,” Thigpen argued. His opposition, however, appears to be more technical than purely ideological.

North Carolina: Colin Powell: Voter ID law punishes minorities, hurts Republicans | UPI.com

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday new changes in North Carolina voting law punish minority voters and will hurt Republicans. Powell, in a speech at the North Carolina CEO Forum in Raleigh — an annual gathering of private and public sector executives and managers — Powell said the state’s new voter ID law is not even necessary because there is no evidence of the kind of voter fraud its backers said it was designed to address. “You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud,” he said. “How can it be widespread and undetected?”

North Carolina: State elections chairman calls for respect | Charlotte Observer

Cary, N.C. County election board members must work as colleagues and not political rivals, the new Republican chairman of the State Board of Elections said Wednesday as recent local board dust-ups have led to allegations of partisanship and voter suppression. Josh Howard addressed nearly 500 local elections board members, directors and staff at a statewide training seminar, the first since all 100 county boards came under GOP control this year after 20 years in Democratic hands. Republicans now hold 2-1 majorities in counties because Gov. Pat McCrory was elected. But the division has gotten more attention in the past week as Democrats and civil rights groups are fuming over actions by Republican elections board members in Pasquotank and Watauga counties that could make it harder for college students to vote.

North Carolina: County Election Boards Escalate Attack on Student Voting | The Nation

Hours after passing the country’s worst voter suppression law, North Carolina Republicans escalated their attempts to prevent students from participating in the political process. The GOP-controlled board of elections in Pasquotank County voted to disqualify Montravias King, a senior at historically black Elizabeth City State University, from running for city council, claiming King couldn’t use his student address to establish residency, even though he’s been registered to vote there since 2009. “The head of the county’s Republican Party said he plans to challenge the voter registrations of more students at the historically black university ahead of upcoming elections,” the AP reported. The GOP chair of the Forsyth County Board of Elections is moving to shut down an early voting site at historically black Winston-Salem State University because he claims students were offered extra credit in class for voting there. “He offered no proof such irregularities had occurred,” the Raleigh News and Observer noted.

North Carolina: County elections boards in North Carolina challenging college student voting patterns | NewsObserver.com

Montravias King is an Elizabeth City State University senior who has been voting in Pasquotank County since he started school there four years ago. The civic-minded student government leader has voted early in city, county, state and national elections in the Pasquotank County seat in northeastern North Carolina, always using his campus dorm address. Now King wants to run for City Council in his college town and his campaign has drawn the attention of such national media figures as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, a vocal critic of the sweeping North Carolina elections revisions signed into law last week. Pete Gilbert, the Pasquotank Republican Party chairman, has tried to put a halt to King’s candidacy in a campaign that could test the scope of the state’s elections law changes. As voting site changes are proposed for other college campuses, the Eastern North Carolina incident also could test the extent to actions that voting rights advocates have described as a GOP-controlled effort to weaken turnout among young voters more likely to vote against them.

North Carolina: New law cancels ballots cast in wrong precinct | Associated Press

For a decade, registered North Carolina voters who didn’t go to their home precincts on Election Day – by error or on purpose – could still ensure their top choices would count. They’d fill out a conditional ballot from the incorrect precinct. If officials confirmed soon after that they were legally able to vote in the county, their votes for elections not specific to their home precinct would be tabulated. But Republicans at the legislature say people should be responsible to know where they’re supposed to vote, rather than force election workers to crosscheck their ballots and figure out their lawful choices. So they inserted in their elections overhaul bill passed last month a new law barring those out-of-precinct ballots- usually thousands combined annually in primary and general elections – from being counted at all. “If you do cast you ballot, you should know which precinct you belong in,” said Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, who shepherded the election law through the Senate, calling the change a “small part of the overall streamlining of the election process.”

North Carolina: Lawmakers may defend laws in court if AG won’t | NBC News

After passing politically divisive legislation on voting laws and setting in motion new abortion restrictions, North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly has given itself the authority to defend them in court. Last month, in a last-minute move before adjourning for the year, lawmakers inserted two sentences into legislation clarifying a new hospital-billing law that would give the state House speaker and Senate leader the option to defend a state statute or provision of North Carolina’s constitution and not rely on Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, has until Aug. 25 to veto the measure. Cooper hasn’t refused to defend the state in any case, though counterparts in California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania said they would not defend their states’ same-sex marriage bans.

North Carolina: In Rural North Carolina, New Voter ID Law Awakens Some Old Fears | NCPR

Sometimes you can tell how hard voting can be just by looking at a place. Drive through a rural pocket of northeastern North Carolina called Bertie County, and all you’ll see for miles and miles are tobacco and soybean fields. You’ll see large families crammed into small trailer homes propped up on cinder blocks. And you’ll notice that many of those homes have no car sitting outside. “Many of these persons don’t have cars. They can’t afford automobiles,” says the Rev. Vonner Horton, driving along the roads in her car. She’s the pastor at New Oxley Hill Baptist Church in Merry Hill, N.C. For years, Horton and her church have used the state’s early-voting system to make sure as many people as possible could vote. They send vans across the county, door to door, to pick people up and take them to polls. But they’re always short on time. Do the math, Horton says. One church van holds about 10 people. Gathering them up can take more than an hour. Then you have to drive to different polling places, long distances apart. Repeat all of this a few more times in one day, and you’ve only got 50 ballots in the box. And this new law has now cut early voting from 17 days down to 10.

North Carolina: Elections boards move to curtail student voting | The State

Within hours of Gov. Pat McCrory signing a Republican-backed bill this week making sweeping changes to the state’s voting laws, local elections boards in two college towns made moves that could make it harder for students to vote. The Watauga County Board of Elections voted Monday to eliminate an early voting site and election-day polling precinct on the campus of Appalachian State University. The Pasquotank County Board of Elections on Tuesday barred an Elizabeth City State University senior from running for city council, ruling his on-campus address couldn’t be used to establish local residency. Following the decision, the head of the county’s Republican Party said he plans to challenge the voter registrations of more students at the historically black university ahead of upcoming elections. Voting rights advocates worry the decisions could signal a statewide effort by GOP-controlled elections boards to discourage turnout among young voters considered more likely to support Democrats.

North Carolina: Civil Rights Groups Vow to Overturn Voting Reform Law | ABC

North Carolina’s sweeping and restrictive new voting law is facing multiple legal challenges from civil rights groups that argue it discriminates against black and young voters. Republican Governor Pat McCrory signed the bill Monday, which goes into effect in 2016. Among other things, the law requires voters to bring state-issued photo IDs to the polls, cuts down early voting time by one week, eliminates same-day voter registration, and bans pre-registration for youth voters who will turn 18 on Election Day. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with two other groups, immediately filed a legal challenge that argues the law attempts to suppress minority voters, thereby violating the Constitution and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The NAACP has filed a similar suit.

North Carolina: Governor signs sweeping voter ID bill into law | Los Angeles Times

One of the nation’s most restrictive voter ID bills was signed into law Monday by North Carolina’s Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican. The new law requires voters to show government-issued ID cards, with polling places not allowed to accept college ID cards or out-of-state driver’s licenses. The law also shortens early voting by a week; eliminates same-day voter registration; allows any registered voter to challenge another voter’s eligibility; and ends popular preregistration for high school students. Republicans have said the law will combat voter fraud and restore integrity to voting, but they have offered no evidence of voter fraud in the state. Civil rights groups and many independent analysts say the law is a blatant attempt to curb voting by blacks, students, the poor and other groups that tend to vote Democratic. The law takes effect for the 2016 elections. Civil rights groups have threatened to sue the state and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has said the Justice Department may pursue legal challenges to voter ID laws passed by several states, including North Carolina. North Carolina Republicans introduced the so-called Restore Confidence in Government Act after the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in June. The court overturned the Act’s requirement for Justice Department “pre-clearance” for any changes to voting laws in certain states.

North Carolina: Elections boards move to curtail student voting | The State

Within hours of Gov. Pat McCrory signing a Republican-backed bill this week making sweeping changes to the state’s voting laws, local elections boards in two college towns made moves that could make it harder for students to vote. The Watauga County Board of Elections voted Monday to eliminate an early voting site and election-day polling precinct on the campus of Appalachian State University. The Pasquotank County Board of Elections on Tuesday barred an Elizabeth City State University senior from running for city council, ruling his on-campus address couldn’t be used to establish local residency. Following the decision, the head of the county’s Republican Party said he plans to challenge the voter registrations of more students at the historically black university ahead of upcoming elections. Voting rights advocates worry the decisions could signal a statewide effort by GOP-controlled elections boards to discourage turnout among young voters considered more likely to support Democrats.

North Carolina: Race at Center of North Carolina Voting Law Battle | ABC

North Carolina’s sweeping new voting law is facing multiple legal challenges from civil rights groups that argue it discriminates against black and young voters. Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill — one of the toughest voting measures in the country — into law on Monday. It requires voters to bring photo ID to the polls, cuts down early voting time by one week, eliminates same-day voter registration and bans pre-registration for youth voters who will turn 18 on Election Day. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with two other groups, filed a legal challenge that argues the law attempts to suppress minority voters, thereby violating the Constitution and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The NAACP has filed a similar suit. “Today’s lawsuit is about ensuring that all voters are able to participate in the political process,” Allison Riggs, a staff attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said in a statement. “Taken together, the new restrictions in this law will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of eligible voters, depriving many of our most vulnerable citizens from being able to easily exercise a constitutional right.”

North Carolina: State sued soon after voter ID bill signed into law | CBS

North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory has signed a sweeping voting reform bill that imposes strict photo identification requirements on the state’s 4.5 million voters, rolls back the early voting period and repeals one-stop registration during early voting. Almost immediately following the signing, civil rights groups filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the law. McCrory, a Republican elected last November, called the bill – passed by the legislature along party lines on July 25 – “a common sense law” that is supported by 70 percent of North Carolinians polled. “Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote,” McCrory said in a written statement. Defending the law in an on camera statement posted to YouTube, he criticized opponents’ “from the extreme left” for using “scare tactics.”

North Carolina: Kay Hagan Seeks Federal Review Of North Carolina Voting Law | Reuters

U.S. Senator Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat expected to face a tough battle to retain her seat in 2014, on Tuesday asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review a restrictive new state voting law championed by Republicans that she said will undermine the right to vote in her state. In a letter to Holder, Hagan said she was “deeply concerned” that the new law, which includes a requirement that voters bring photo identification to the polls, will deny voting rights to minorities, young people, the elderly and the poor. “Protecting the fundamental right of our citizens to vote should be among the federal government’s highest priorities,” Hagan wrote. On Monday, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed into law sweeping new election reforms, making his the first state to enact new restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a Civil Rights-era law designed to protect minority voters.

North Carolina: Reality Check: Voter I.D. Will Impact Students | WLOS

On the campus of AB Tech students are trickling back for the fall semester.  Beyond the looming, marathon study sessions and exams is concern over a new requirement of the Voter I.D. bill signed into law Monday.  Students now have to show a government I.D. to vote.  “It kind of doesn’t make sense at all, actually,” said Takidra Young. Young’s college  doesn’t count even though AB Tech is a state-run college. “I disagree with that,” said AB Tech student Brock Thurber.  Just because it’s an inconvenience to the student.” Said Young, “it doesn’t make sense because you have to use a government I.D. to get the student I.D. anyway.”

North Carolina: North Carolina's sweeping voter ID law faces legal challenge | Fox News

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday signed into law changes in how residents can vote that includes requiring them to show a photo ID at polling stations, a move that triggered threats of legal action from the NAACP and other groups. The American Civil Liberties Union joined two other groups in announcing that they were filing suit against key parts of the package. This came hours after McCrory said in a statement that he had signed the measure, without a ceremony. “Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

North Carolina: Governor signs extensive Voter ID law | The Washington Post

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) on Monday signed into law one of the nation’s most wide-ranging Voter ID laws.
The move is likely to touch off a major court battle over voting rights, and the Justice Department is weighing a challenge to the new law. The measure requires voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls and shortens the early voting period from 17 to 10 days. It will also end pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-old voters who will be 18 on Election Day and eliminates same-day voter registration. Democrats and minority groups have been fighting against the changes, arguing that they represent an effort to suppress the minority vote and the youth vote, along with reducing Democrats’ advantage in early voting. They point out that there is little documented evidence of voter fraud.

North Carolina: Sweeping Voter Suppression Law Is Challenged in Court | The Nation

Today, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed the nation’s worst voter suppression law. The sweeping law requires strict government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot, cuts the number of early voting days by a week, eliminates same-day voter registration during the early voting period, makes it easier for vigilante poll watchers to challenge the validity of eligible voters and expands the influence of unregulated corporate money in state elections. Two lawsuits were filed today challenging the voting restrictions as racially discriminatory in federal court under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A third challenge, to the voter ID provision, will be filed in state court tomorrow morning. The lawsuit brought by the North Carolina NAACP and the Advancement Project alleges that the law violates Section 2 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments because it “imposes unjustified and discriminatory electoral burdens on large segments of the state’s population and will cause the denial, dilution, and abridgement of African-Americans’ fundamental right to vote.” It alleges that five provisions of the law disproportionately impact African-American voters—the voter ID requirement, the cuts to early voting, the elimination of same-day voter registration, the refusal to count out-of-precinct provisional ballots, and the increase in the number of poll watchers.

North Carolina: State Attorney General Cooper urges McCrory to veto voter ID bill | abc11.com

There’s a new push to veto North Carolina’s controversial voter ID bill. Attorney General Roy Cooper is stepping into the fight. He’s making one last effort to convince Gov. Pat McCrory not to sign it. McCrory has yet to sign that bill, but has said that he will. He could be doing that very soon. However, until that pen hits the paper, Cooper, who is a Democrat, hopes signatures on an online petition will change the governor’s mind. The bill would, among many things, require a photo ID at the polls, would make early voting days longer, but shorten the number of early voting days, and stop same-day registration. “I sent the governor a letter telling him this was a bad idea,” said Cooper.

North Carolina: The racist history of voter challenge provisions in ‘monster’ election bill | Facing South

There is a lot to be concerned about in North Carolina’s omnibus elections bill, which voting rights advocates have dubbed a “Monster Law.” Indeed, HB 589 — which has been passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and awaits Gov. Pat McCrory’s signature — is a sort of Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from all the worst election laws found across the country. There’s a voter ID provision that invalidates college IDs, as seen in Texas; shrinking early voting periods, which Florida recently apologized for; and dubious “free ID” provisions that haven’t worked in Pennsylvania. Election law experts have found legal problems with many provisions, and the state’s attorney general also warned of its shaky legal standing. Among the most troubling parts of the law are provisions that expand the powers of poll observers and election challengers. We have seen in Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania what happens when states don’t rein in the activities of “voter vigilantes” who comb through voter files looking to have people purged, and who provide false election information to voters under the guise of “observing.” The Texas-based group True the Vote has created a cottage industry out of such vigilantism, and they’ve inspired the North Carolina group Voter Integrity Project (VIP-NC) to do the same. Elections expert Daniel Smith of the University of Florida has called such efforts the “privatization of voter suppression.”

North Carolina: Lawsuits expected over major North Carolina voting changes | Charlotte Observer

When Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signs North Carolina’s sweeping new elections bill as expected this month, critics will be ready to act, too – in court. The bill not only contains one of the nation’s strictest photo ID laws but compresses the time for early voting and ends straight-ticket balloting. It would no longer count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The bill that emerged in the final days of this year’s legislative session goes beyond voting changes. It limits disclosure of outside campaign spending, ends public financing for judicial races and no longer makes candidates take responsibility for their ads. “I have never seen a single law that is more anti-voter,” says Penda Hair, a lawyer with the Advancement Project, a civil rights group in Washington. “North Carolina now joins a very short list of (states) that seem … motivated to stop people from voting.”

North Carolina: McCrory to sign or not to sign controversial elections bill? | wsoctv.com

Whether Gov. Pat McCrory will sign the controversial elections bill should be known within a week or so. That news came out of the governor’s meeting with his council of state on Tuesday. It was the group’s first meeting since McCrory signed several bills into law. While he did mention specific bills he is reviewing, he did not address a bill that has garnered national attention and opposition within the state from democrats and the NAACP.

North Carolina: Voting Laws Could Hinge On Evidence Of Racism | Huffington Post

In recent weeks, civil-rights advocates and legal experts in North Carolina have contemplated a provocative question: Are the state’s Republican lawmakers racist? The answer could determine the future of North Carolina’s voting laws. If a court finds that the state’s lawmakers have engaged in a deliberate attempt to discriminate against minority voters, the federal government could require the state to clear all future election policies with the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court. That would renew the federal oversight that ended with the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act. In June, a 5-4 United States Supreme Court majority struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that required jurisdictions with extensive histories of discriminating against minorities — including eight states in the South and parts of other states — to get “preclearance” from the DOJ before making changes to their voting policies.

North Carolina: Voter ID Law Could Lead To Increased Voter Intimidation, Harassment, Election Officials Fear | Huffington Post

In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, reports of harassment and intimidation at the polls were so rampant in North Carolina that the state’s top election official was obliged to send a memo to his employees reminding them that they could call police if necessary. Now, as North Carolina’s governor prepares to sign one of the most restrictive election bills in the nation, civil-rights advocates and election officials in the state expect to see a rise in what they call voter intimidation. The law, which North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is expected to sign any day, would allow political parties to send 10 roving “observers” from precinct to precinct on voting days, and it would authorize citizens to challenge the legality of votes cast in the county where the challenger lives. (Under the current law, you can only challenge a vote cast by someone living in your precinct.) Supporters contend that the law will help observers catch people in the act of fraud, but critics point out that evidence of this type of fraud is scarce. They insist that the real goal is to intimidate Democratic-leaning black voters, some of whom may remember the threats and assaults that swept the South in the late 1960s, after the 1965 Voting Rights Act toppled the official barriers blacks had faced at the polls.

North Carolina: McCrory says it all: ‘I don’t know enough’ | The CLog

At a Friday press conference, “Governor” Pat McCrory announced that he will sign the controversial “voter ID” bill into law, even though he hadn’t even read one of the bill’s crucial components – and showed a pretty weak grasp of state policy on voter registration. By the time the bill finished snaking its way through the General Assembly, it had morphed from a mere voter ID law into an all-purpose vote-suppression campaign, making far-reaching changes to the way North Carolinians may or may not vote, and earning nationwide notice as the country’s most suppressive voting law. McCrory praised the bill to reporters as just the perfect thing to “restore faith in elections.” However, when an AP reporter asked the guv how three specific parts of the bill would help prevent voter fraud, McCrory scrambled for answers. In addition to requiring a government-issued photo-ID card, the bill also ends same-day voter registration, cuts early voting by a week, and abolishes a program that let high school students register to vote in advance of their 18th birthdays.