With all the legal wrangling and vocal protests about North Carolina’s new election changes, you’d think legislators who helped pass the wide-reaching 2013 law might keep quiet about that support as General Assembly elections approach. Actually, they’re actively taking credit for the law — or at least it’s most publicized provision. In mailers and on a television ad early in the fall campaign, a handful of North Carolina Senate Republicans seeking re-election are highlighting their votes for a bill that will soon require people to show a valid photo identification to vote in person. That’s because the idea of voter ID remains popular and reinforces a promise many lawmakers made to pass it when they first got elected.
“To stop fraud and guarantee fair and honest elections, Chad Barefoot passed voter ID,” says a mailer authorized by Barefoot, a first-term Wake County Republican senator.
“Phil Berger didn’t back down. He fought for our voter ID law,” the narrator in the TV commercial for the Senate leader says. Their House GOP counterparts intend to trumpet voter ID leading to November, too.
The elections law approved by the GOP-led legislature and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory requires citizens to show one of several types of photo identification cards to vote by 2016. This year, voters only are being asked if they have an ID and told how to get one if they don’t.
Full Article: NC Republicans see positives with voter ID credit – SFGate.