The motive behind requiring a photo ID to vote has always been thinly veiled. The real intention isn’t to protect the integrity of an election. It’s to discourage voting by people from groups that tend to vote Democratic — African-Americans, Hispanic immigrants and college students, in particular. Now the investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. elections has laid that hypocrisy bare. The U.S. intelligence community agrees that the threat of Russia’s interference is real. Studies show the threat of people impersonating other voters isn’t. Yet North Carolina’s lawmakers are pushing to stop the latter and saying little about the former.
Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the State Board of Elections, said last week that no breach of North Carolina’s election systems has been reported by U.S. intelligence agencies. However, he said there may be ongoing efforts to penetrate the board’s computer system.
“We have foreign pings on our network daily. We don’t always know whether the traffic is malicious or routine,” he said. “If the traffic doesn’t meet our security protocols, however, those connections aren’t allowed access and are stopped at the perimeter.”
Full Article: Russian election threat grows, but GOP wants more scrutiny of NC voters | News & Observer.