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BY TORI TAYLOR Just yesterday, the governor signed in what is being considered the >>nation’s worst voter suppression law. This new law implements the most sweeping changes to North Carolina’s election process we’ve seen in decades.
The >>restrictions would require voters to show approved photo identification at the polls, reduce early voting by a week, end straight-ticket voting, and eliminate same-day voter registration during early voting. This law even >>eliminates pre-registering 16 and 17-year-olds, a popular high school civic engagement program that is responsible for registering tens of thousands of students each year.
Additionally, the law increases the maximum amount for campaign donations, creates a second primary during presidential elections, and loosens disclosure and transparency requirements in campaign advertising.
Opponents say that the law doesn’t just harm the overall democratic process; it specifically targets working people, students, seniors, minority communities, and the disabled. For example, this law drastically cuts early voting hours. During the 2012, >>2.5 million ballots were cast during early voting period. More than 70% of African American voters used early voting between the 2008 and 2012 elections.
This law hurts a young woman whose public university ID card isn’t an accepted form of identification at her polling site. It places a burden on a working mother of two who can’t get off work to vote during business hours and the evening polling site hours have been cut. It hurts a senior citizen from rural North Carolina who has voted in every presidential election since we can remember, but now lives in a nursing home with limited means. Her driver’s license expired when she was 69.
This bill does a lot of things that spell bad news for North Carolina’s political process, but the most fundamental problem is that it makes it harder to have a voice. Our country was founded upon the idea that citizens should have a voice in their government. North Carolinians deserve elected representatives who value the will of their citizens– not actively work to silence it.
Yes, the fundamental problem is that this makes it harder, and often impossible, for thousands and thousands among the citizenry to exercise their right to vote. Another problem is that it addresses a non-problem, that is voter fraud, which virtually doesn’t exist.
In my opinion, the Republican spin on this — protecting elections — is hogwash, and they know it. The real NC Republican leadership’s goal is to exclude those voters who are most likely to vote Democratic; their primary purpose is to enable Repbulicans to win elections. Obviously, since they have become so radical in recent years, they don’t believe they could win otherwise, not for very long. It is such a shame that what was once a proud and morally valid American political party has felt compelled to take this route.
The fact that they are crippling what is a fundamental right in this state brings shame to their party and to our state. We can only hope the Federal Government puts a stop to it.
I feel sick at heart for the people of my home state…USED to “like calling North Carolina home.”