North Carolina’s Voter ID Law Could Block 218,000 Registered Voters From the Polls

[KamaAina]

http://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolinas-voter-id-law-could-block-218000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/

North Carolina’s new voter ID law goes into effect for the first time during the March 15 primary and 218,000 registered voters do not have an acceptable form of government-issued ID now required to vote....

Douglas’s story is all-too-familiar these days. In recent weeks I’ve written about 94-year-old Rosanell Eaton, who had to recite the Preamble to the Constitution from memory to register to vote in Jim Crow North Carolina during the 1940s and had to make eleven trips to different state agencies in 2015 to comply with the new law. And 86-year-old Reba Bowser, a Republican voter since the Eisenhower era, whose voter ID application was initially rejected despite bringing an expired New Hampshire driver’s license, two different birth certificates, a Social Security card, a Medicare card, and her apartment lease to the DMV.

Nor have the problems been confirmed to elderly voters. Logan Graham, a student at North Carolina State, couldn’t vote with his out-of-state driver’s license or his state-university issued ID. When he went to the DMV to get a voter ID he was wrongly sent to the Board of Elections, who then sent him back to the DMV, where the two-hour lines twice forced him to leave before obtaining an ID so he could go to class.

The good news is those with a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining an ID can still vote in North Carolina. The GOP legislature added this provision three weeks before a federal court heard a challenge to the law, evidently worried it would be struck down. The bad news is they must cast a provisional ballot that is subject to challenge, and more than half of provisional ballots cast in North Carolina in 2014 were rejected. Furthermore, few voters know the reasonable impediment provision exists. “The state has flatly done an inadequate job of educating people,” says Allison Riggs, a senior attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

[Skwmom]

1. That is screwed up.

People should be able to vote.

[napi21]

2. How long has NC talked about the NEW VOTER ID that will e needed? A year? MORE?

What the heck is wrong with people getting what they need by now? I'm 72, I don't drive anymore, but if I needed a new type of ID, I'd sure have it!

[KamaAina]

3. Reading comprehension is your friend.

In September 2012, Douglas’s niece, Clara Quick, took her to the DMV in Laurinburg, North Carolina, to get a state photo ID. Douglas was told she needed a copy of her birth certificate to get an ID. So they traveled across the state line to Dillon, South Carolina, where Douglas was born, to find her birth certificate. But the government office there said she needed a photo ID to get a birth certificate, and Douglas was caught in a seemingly unresolvable catch-22. (This account comes from an affidavit Quick filed in federal court.)

Her niece called the South Carolina’s Vital Records office, paid $17 for an expedited birth certificate, but still couldn’t get one. Instead, she was told to find her aunt’s marriage certificate, which was in Bennettsville, South Carolina. After getting that, they made a second trip to the North Carolina DMV, but were once again told Douglas couldn’t get a photo ID because she didn’t have a birth certificate.

They were so frustrated that they gave up trying for a time. In the fall of 2013, after North Carolina passed the voter ID law, they made a third trip to the DMV. An employee told Quick to get a census report to confirm her aunt’s identify, which she purchased for $69. Quick brought her aunt’s census report, marriage certificate, Social Security card, and utility bill during a fourth trip to the DMV in September 2014 and was finally able to get her the photo ID needed to vote.

It took two years, four trips to the DMV, two trips to South Carolina, and $86 in government documents for an 85-year-old woman to continue to vote. Quick called it “an absolute nightmare. There are other voters out there that do not have the money, time, access to transportation, and family assistance to obtain a NCDMV photo ID. It should not be this difficult to obtain an ID for voting.”

[napi21]

4. Agreed, that is insane! I know all tthe southern States seem really hooked on birth certs.

When we moved from Pa. to Ga. in 2000, I took the BC I had (from 1943) and my Pa. DL and marriage license to the DMV to get a State ID. HAA! They wouldn't accept my BC. Apparently the BC's issued in 1943 didn't have the State seal on them, so I hd to pay to get one from the State of PA WITH a seal. At the tie I wasn't in any rush so the whole process took about 4 weeks and $25 for the new BC.

The story related in your post is by far the exception than the rule. Honestly, I think many people either ignore the info, or procrastinate until it's too late then complain about not being allowed to vote. Those are the people I was referring to.

[Demit]

5. Making up reasons why people don't do something then criticizing them for it.

Such thoughtful analysis!

[edhopper]

6. Don't you get that the law and beuracracy around it

is set up to STOP people from voting?

It is not easy, and they make it harder everyday.

Especially for working people who have their hands full.

[napi21]

9. Of course I know the Pubbies are intent on stopping workig people, the poor & most minorities from

voting BECAUSE they believe most of them vote for Democrats. There should NOT BE ANY obstacles for someone to vote and we should work to that end. In the meantime, we have to work with what laws we have...bad as they are...and find ways to help people get registered, get whatever ID they need and show the AH's their devious plan didn't work! That's all I'm talking about.

[edhopper]

11. I agree

The Dem Party in those States should make that the #1 priority.

[csziggy]

7. Voting is a right and there should not be impediments to voting

There seem to be more obstacles to voting than there are to buying guns and voting is as much a right as the right to own a gun.

For instance, in some of the states requiring photo ID concealed carry permits are allowed as ID while Federal veteran's cards and student IDs are not allowed. In some of the anecdotes about difficulties in voting US Passports were not accepted as sufficient photo ID.

When I renewed my Florida driver's license - the photo ID I now use for voting - I had to take a certified birth certificate, Social Security card, and proof of residency. The birth certificate was not a problem - but it cost $10 to get a current copy with the state seal on it since the one my parents had from the 1950s did not have a seal - (and since I never changed my name after marriage I didn't have to provide additional documentation of the marriage) and the residency was not a problem, just a copy of my current utility bill. Since the utility bills are in my name, my husband had to take in other proof of his residency - I think he used a Social Security statement.

But my Social Security card caused problems. The under 30 year old clerk did not want to accept it. It's the original card that was issued back in the 1950s - the other copy is still attached to the original card that my parents got for me when I was a kid. The clerk had never seen one like it and did not want to accept it. Her supervisor overhead me making a fuss, came over and approved it but it made the process take longer than it should have.

For older Americans little things like this can make life difficult. For instance, when my mother had to get a new copy of her birth certificate she ran into problems. It seems that when Alabama digitized their records they entered the date her birth was registered rather than the actual birth date. So her birthday on her new birth certificate was one day off and did not match anything in her records for the rest of her life. It took YEARS to get it corrected with Alabama - and meanwhile many of her records had gotten screwed up because of their fuck up.

It didn't matter than her original Social Security application, all her school records, her Navy Nurse records, her employment records and every single other piece of paperwork showed her correct birthdate, including the certificate from the hospital that her parents had carefully saved for her and the family Bible that had dates faithfully kept for a hundred years. Alabama refused to correct their data until Mom had her congressman contact them.

If she had not been able to get it corrected, the state of Florida would not have issued her a photo ID and this World War II veteran who has voted in every election since she was old enough and who worked in elections for forty years would not have been allowed to vote.

[librechik]

8. to be fair, it's only likely Dem voters

It's not like they want to block the good Christian folks.

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. Actually case in the OP's story is a woman who has voted Republican

going to back to Eisenhower. This is something every voter should be upset about.

[unc70]

10. One caught without ID was GOP Senator BURR

Last week he went to vote and had "lost" his ID. Burr cast a provisional ballot. Karma!