Next year’s elections will be a far different animal in North Carolina if Republicans get their way, but one significant roadblock could ensure that doesn’t happen: Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto pen.

During the General Assembly’s six-month “long” session, the GOP majority weighed a range of election-law reform bills. The most high profile and controversial — House Bill 351, Restore Confidence in Government — would require voters to show valid photo identification at the polls.

The measure passed the House and Senate in a party-line vote. On Thursday, Perdue, a Democrat, issued her eighth veto of the year in sending the bill back to Republicans.

“We must always be vigilant in protecting the integrity of our elections,” Perdue said in a statement. “But requiring every voter to present a government-issued photo ID is not the way to do it.”

Within minutes of the veto, House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, put out statements condemning the action. Berger accused Perdue of “playing politics with the integrity of elections,” and Tillis said the governor “has put the interests of fringe elements of her political party above the wishes of the majority of North Carolinians.”

The GOP faces an uphill climb in trying to override the veto, which Tillis said the legislature plans to attempt during a mid-July session. The legislation passed the House 67-50, five votes short of a three-fourths majority needed to overcome the veto, and it’s unclear whether any Democrats are willing to switch their votes.

A flashpoint

Voter ID has been a lightning rod of controversy during the session. Liberals say it would suppress voter turnout.

“Hardball partisan politics is one thing, and one can well understand a new majority taking a run at that. Democrats had done it before,” said Gene Nichol, a law professor and director of the University of North Carolina’s Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity. “But actually moving to suppress electoral participation goes against the foundational American promise of equal rights of political participation and full consent of the governed.”

In contrast, conservative forces say voter ID is an important step to strengthen the integrity of elections.

“A grand majority of the people believe you should have to show ID, and a lot of those people come to the polls and show their ID anyway,” said Susan Myrick, a policy analyst for the conservative Civitas Institute.

Racial politics have entered the fray, too, as Democrats have compared it to a poll tax meant to dilute minority votes.

“There is no question that this disproportionately affects the African-American community and minority voters … this is not the direction we should go,” said House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange.

Myrick disputed that because the bill provides free identification for voters who don’t have one already, and voters can still vote by mail without an ID.

“The whole argument goes down the drain right there,” she said.

Tweaking elections

Although voter ID has garnered the most attention, other key reforms pushed by the GOP could have a sweeping impact as well. One “omnibus” bill would ban straight-ticket voting, shorten the early-voting period, and repeal same-day voter registration.

That measure passed the Senate 36-13 but didn’t make it through the House before adjournment. Because it made the crossover deadline, the bill remains eligible for consideration in sessions later this year or the “short” session next year.

House Bill 32, Electoral Freedom Act of 2011, passed the House but not the Senate. The proposed law makes it easier for third parties to get on the ballot.

Other legislation — House Bill 452, Judicial Elections Changes — would restore partisan labels to judicial races and repeal public financing for Council of State Races. It made crossover by passing the House 67-50, but the Senate didn’t take it up.

The state’s public financing plan took a body blow Monday, when a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Arizona statute that set up a matching-funds provision similar to the one in the Tar Heel State. The court said Arizona’s funding scheme violated the First Amendment’s free speech protections by letting the government penalize self-financed campaigns.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.