North Carolina House Republicans are trying to pass legislation that demands people show photo identification before they enter a voting booth, even though it appears the measure would face a veto from Gov. Beverly Perdue.
The House returned Thursday to debate further a politically divisive voter ID bill after the Republican-led chamber conducted the first of two required votes just before midnight Wednesday following just a few minutes of debate.
The bill was tentatively approved on a 67-50 party-line vote, but the GOP margin falls a few votes shy of overcoming any potential veto. Perdue’s office has been critical of the legislation, and Democrats and voting rights advocates have called it a veiled method to suppress voting among blacks, older adults and women.
… Democrats argue voter ID legislation is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist and would cost the state millions of dollars to implement. The incidence of fraud is rare, they say, and it’s already a felony for someone to vote using someone else’s name. Democrats aren’t sold on Republicans’ insistence that motives behind the bill are nonpartisan.
Black lawmakers referred to the efforts by civil rights leaders to protect voting rights after decades of Jim Crow-era restrictions to plead with Republicans to oppose the bill they say will quell voter participation.
“This is part of an organized national strategy to find a way to disenfranchise voters to oppose you at the polls, there is no other purpose,” said Rep. William Wainwright, D-Craven, who is black. “This bill is partisan politics at its worst. This is not restoring confidence in government. You are increasing suspicion of government.”
Full Article: Passionate debate resumes on NC’s voter ID bill – Times Union.