By Andie Foley
andie.foley@salisburypost.com

Two years after federal courts found North Carolina’s voter identification laws to be unconstitutional, voter ID requirements are making a comeback.

The return comes at the hands of North Carolina voters, who cast ballots Nov. 6 in favor of a constitutional amendment that will “require voters to provide photo identification before voting in person.”

One of six proposed amendments on the ballot this year, and one of four that passed, the voter ID amendment was approved by the narrowest margin: 55 to 45 percent.

Amendments affecting income tax rates, victims’ rights and hunting and fishing passed with yea votes ranging from 57 to 62 percent.

Margins on the four approved amendments were much wider in Rowan County, with yea votes ranging from 69 percent of the vote — for an income tax cap — to 73 percent for victims’ rights.

Some 70 percent of Rowan County voters voted in favor of voter ID.

North Carolina’s voter ID history

North Carolina legislators passed the Voter Information Verification Act, or VIVA, in 2013. Then, requirements for photo IDs when voting in person were planned to take affect during the 2016 election.

The then-anticipated-yet-controversial bill had local roots: local Rep. Harry Warren, who currently represents Rowan County in its 77th district, penned it.

VIVA would grow as it moved from North Carolina’s House to Senate. Alongside instituting a polling identification requirement, it changed other voting practices across the state: it eliminated same-day registration and voting and the ability to register before reaching the age of 18. It also limited early voting and casting votes in the wrong precinct.

The act was not to last. In July 2016, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found five of the law’s provisions “target(ed) African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

The contested five provisions included all those listed here. In the case of voter ID, the law “retained only those types of photo ID disproportionately held by whites and excluded those disproportionately held by African-Americans,” the court’s decision read.

The voter ID comeback

North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore can this time be credited with the resurgence of photo voter identification requirements. He announced his plan to add the requirement to the state constitution in June of this year, calling it a “common sense measure to secure the integrity of our elections system.”

It’s a sentiment proponents of the amendment have echoed both locally and across the state.

In October talks with the Post, vice chairwoman of the Rowan Republican Party Elaine Hewitt said votes were more important than airline security and controlling Sudafed sales: both items that rely on photo identification.

The amendment, she said, was aimed at preventing fraud.

Yet critics feel the amendment is once more intended to discourage minority voting or disenfranchise certain people groups: the elderly, the poor, young people and members of the trans community.

Of these groups, many are unlikely to have driver’s licenses, the most common form of government-issued photo ID. Members of the trans community may have IDs that misalign with the names and genders they identify with.

Still, fears of disenfranchisement were not enough to keep the amendment from passing. With all votes in and canvassed, legislators will gather for a special session after Thanksgiving to iron out the details of these and other amendments before Republicans lose their veto-proof majority this January.

Local projections for the new law

When asked how the new law will differ from the bill passed in 2013, Rep. Warren offered words of comfort for amendment detractors.

“Enabling legislation … will most likely focus primarily on the requirement for presenting an approved form of identification that includes a photo of the individual when voting in person,” he said. It shouldn’t address any other aspects of the electoral process, such as the other four of five provisions struck down once before.

The emphasis, Warren said, was on in-person voting: “Individuals without an approved ID could chose to vote a provisional ballot or sign a hardship affidavit to vote or could vote an absentee ballot without a photo identification requirement.”

Accepted reasons for hardship under VIVA included lack of transportation, disability or illness, lack of birth certificate or other documents needed to obtain photo ID, work schedule, family responsibilities, lost or stolen ID, photo ID applied for but not received or “other reasonable impairment(s).”

Warren said he’d like to see the forms of ID allowed under VIVA accepted, as well as additional forms court approved in the 34 other states with identification requirements.

Under VIVA, accepted IDs included North Carolina driver’s licenses, learner’s permits, provisional licenses, DMV ID cards, passports, United States military or veterans’ identification cards, federally recognized tribal enrollment cards and out-of-state driver’s licenses or IDs for those who had recently moved.

Other states accept various forms of non-photographic identification: state-issued voter identification cards, utility bills and bank statements, for example.

Other Rowan County legislators expressed similar visions for the law. Rep. Julia Howard, R-79, inheriting parts of Rowan County in the newly drawn 76th district in January, also said she hoped legislators would determine what other states accept and do likewise.

Asked about the fear of marginalization, she said she found it hard to understand why this continues to be an issue for North Carolina with so many other states requiring identification.

Carl Ford, who currently represents Rowan’s 76th district and will represent North Carolina’s 33rd Senate district come January, called the requirement “essential to the integrity of our voting process.”

He said the original law offered provisions for free state IDs for those facing financial hardships. He said he expected a similar program could be in place under the new amendment.

“The voter ID is not to suppress voters but rather to empower voters,” he said. “… Our freedom for our citizens to vote regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic background and beliefs is some of what makes our country great, so to be able to protect the integrity of that process is essential.”

Rep. Larry Pittman, R-82, whose reach will extend into Rowan County in January in the new District 83, said he couldn’t speculate on the law until he sees what legislators propose during the special session.