RALEIGH (AP) ó After years of arguments muted by Democrats, the newly installed Republican majority at the Legislature is resolute this year on expanding identification requirements before voters enter a polling booth.
Requiring a photo ID in order to vote was on a list of fall campaign pledges GOP legislative candidates said theyíd follow through on in the sessionís first 100 days if they were in power. Democratic leaders refused to take up Republican-penned ID bills over the years.
GOP members say their constituents want the change so they can feel confident in the accuracy of election tallies by minimizing potential fraud.
ěTheyíre looking to ensure the validity of their own vote,î said Rep. Ric Killian, R-Mecklenburg, who is helping assemble a voter ID bill to be rolled out soon.
The idea already appears to be getting a makeover that could mitigate complaints by advocates it could cost too much, fixes a problem that doesnít exist, and create an obstacle for the poor and minority groups. Some are worried the rules will feel too much like those whites once used during the Jim Crow era to discourage blacks from voting.
ěWhat theyíre talking about is a step backwards to the poll tax, the kind of things that remind us of a time of deep regression and wrong in our public square,î said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Killian and other GOP lawmakers fashioning the bill say those perceptions are mistaken.
House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said before the sessionís start the GOP majority would listen to people worried about the photo ID before moving ahead with the measure: ěWe want to reach out to people who have those concerns and we want to put those concerns to rest.î
But that wonít prevent impassioned arguments against it from Democrats and their allies on whatís become a divisive issue over the past decade.
ěThe ID has become a key difference between the two parties on what I call election administration policy,î said Doug Chapin, director of election initiatives at the Pew Center on the States in Washington.
Twenty-seven states have some voter identification requirement thatís more stringent than what a 2002 federal election law requires, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. About a dozen states have approved voter ID laws since 2003, including Georgia and Indiana, whose photo ID requirements were upheld by federal courts. The South Carolina House approved a tougher photo ID requirement last week.
In North Carolina, registered voters give a name and address to a poll worker to confirm they are on the voting rolls. Only first-time voters who didnít have a valid ID when they registered now must show a current photo ID or an identifying document like a utility bill or bank statement. Now Republicans want to require voters to show proof of identity each time they cast a ballot.
Killian and Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, a longtime voter ID advocate, said they are looking to add a voterís registration card that all voters are mailed to the list of acceptable identifications.
The card, which doesnít include a photo, would provide a free option for voters who have neither an ID card with their current address nor a driverís license. It also could save the state the expense of paying for goverment-issued photo IDs for indigents and others, Killian said. He said heíd like to see more identifying information on the cards, such as the personís height, eye and hair color.
How many voters have neither a state-issued driverís license nor photo ID is unclear. In South Carolina, the rate is 7 percent of the voters. In North Carolina, that percentage would equal 426,000 people.
Sarah Preston with the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the registration card option mitigates some of her groupís concerns, but the group still has questions about its practicality.
ěIt would be a lot cheaper to add an investigator to the Board of Elections and develop evidence of fraud … than require millions of voters to keep their registration card or update their photo IDs,î said Bob Hall with the election reform group Democracy North Carolina.
Voter fraud is already a felony in North Carolina. The State Board of Elections referred 43 cases of potential fraud to district attorneys in 2008 and 21 in 2010, according to board data. The numbers donít include more than 230 cases since 2008 involving allegations a convicted felon serving active prison time or probation sought to vote. The board doesnít track convictions.
Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue said she wouldnít automatically veto a more stringent voter ID law if approved by the General Assembly, saying it would depend on the details.
Senate Minority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said requiring an ID ěcan be used to suppress votes and we will be trying to make sure that that doesnít happen.î