North Carolina’s harsh voter identification law, the Voter Information Verification Act, has met strong resistance since it passed in 2013. As the Act nears its 2016 implementation, the state Board of Elections recently released its proposed set of specific rules for administering the ID requirement, followed by nine hearings across the state for the purpose of soliciting public comment on the rules.
Many North Carolinians used the hearings as an outlet to express their concerns about the law’s potential to disenfranchise voters, and in a triumph for the democratic process, the legislature has now responded with a bill to help ease some (though not all) of the law’s harshness.
The 2013 Voter Information Verification Act requires, in part, that voters present an approved form of photo ID in order to vote. The law states that the photo must bear a “reasonable resemblance” to the voter, but stops short of specifying what “reasonable resemblance” means. The proposed rules released by the Board of Elections include specific guidance on the “reasonable resemblance” requirement, including the instruction that perceived differences in weight, hair style, facial hair, complexion, disability, and other characteristics may not be grounds for finding a lack of resemblance.
The rules also provide leniency with regard to discrepancies between the ID and the voter rolls, such as discrepancies involving customary name variations or hyphenated names.
Public reaction at the Board of Elections hearings was mixed, with many expressing overall support for the Board’s lenient rules while still protesting the photo ID requirement itself.
In the meantime, groups challenging the law in state and federal lawsuits mounted evidence of disenfranchisement as the July court date fast approached.
Facing all this public and legal pressure, the legislature finally cracked and overwhelmingly passed a bill last week to loosen the law’s photo ID requirements. Under the new law, voters will not be required to present an ID if they have a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining one.
The bill is certainly a step in the right direction and a victory for the democratic process. After many individuals and organizations came together to protest the restrictive requirements, North Carolina lawmakers – even those deeply committed to the photo ID law – realized they simply could not ignore the concerns any longer.
But the new bill only loosens the 2013 law’s photo ID requirement and does nothing to address other problematic provisions like the elimination of same-day registration and the reduction of the early-voting period, changes which still threaten to disenfranchise many voters. If legislators truly cared about protecting universal access to the polls, they would have included solutions to these issues in the recent bill.
It remains to be seen whether these other parts of the Voter Information Verification Act will survive the upcoming trial, but if they do, North Carolinians will encounter a very different election process when they go to the polls in 2016.
Just like they could not ignore North Carolinians’ concerns about voter ID, legislators cannot continue to ignore citizens’ other grave concerns about the Voter Information Verification Act. For now, this latest legislative action demonstrates the powerful ability of citizens and activists to bring about legislative change when they stand up and participate in the democratic process.
Ben Anderson is a legal intern with Project for the summer of 2015.