The Republican-led General Assembly fell short in its initial attempt to override Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a voter ID bill. But the proposal is far from dead. House Bill 351, also known as the Restore Confidence in Government Voter ID Bill, stalled after Gov. Beverly Perdue vetoed it in July.
H.B. 351 would require voters to show a valid, government-issued identity document at the polls. House Rules Committee Co-Chairman Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, a primary sponsor of H.B. 351, said Republicans hope members of the legislature will reconsider the bill in September; it was kept alive by using a procedural maneuver when the override failed.
Moore said members of the General Assembly who opposed the bill should think twice after several Wake County voters were charged with voter fraud in August. He said those incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Under current law it is hard to catch people in the act and it is nearly impossible to prosecute,” Moore told Carolina Journal. “It is a difficult crime to prove, and it can be perpetrated on a massive scale.”
In a December poll, the conservative Civitas Institute found 83 percent of registered voters support a voter ID requirement. An Elon University poll from April of North Carolina residents found 75 percent support for the measure. “Local election board officials say that the most common complaint they hear from voters is why people aren’t required to show an ID to vote,” noted mid-February report by WRAL-TV in Raleigh.
Leaders have another trick up their sleeves, however. They may consider introducing several local voter ID bills that would bypass Perdue’s veto power and bring it effectively into law.
The state constitution allows the General Assembly to pass “local” bills that apply only to the jurisdictions (such as counties) that are specified in the legislation. Two other differences between local and general statutes: Local bills cannot be vetoed if an individual bill covers fewer than 15 counties; but they can be vetoed “if the result of [similar local] laws taken together would be a law applying in more than half the counties in the State.”
The General Assembly could pass several local bills that include fewer than 50 counties but cover the vast majority of the state’s population. More than 85 percent of North Carolinians live in the state’s 50 most populous counties. A series of local bills could make a voter ID mandate the law for nearly every resident of the state, and Perdue could do nothing to stop it.
Plymouth resident Greg Hassell knows firsthand the effects of voter and election day fraud after he ran for sheriff of Washington County in 2010. The Republican candidate lost the race by four votes. But as Hassell pored over the results, he found seven people voted who shouldn’t have. The reason? They were dead.
“I knew that there had been some activity that was wrong,” he said. “They couldn’t explain the numbers. I would have won the election if those irregularities hadn’t transpired.”
Hassell feels certain that had voters faced a legal requirement to provide photo ID at the polls, he would be sheriff in his community today.
Perdue and Democratic Party officials — with the full backing of the Obama administration — continue to fight a voter ID requirement. On its website, the North Carolina Democratic Party claims that at least 500,000 elderly and minority voters “would be turned away from the polls” if IDs were required. They also claim there is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem in the state.
Joyce McCloy, president of the North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting, also opposes the measure. She said it would exclude low-income voters, calling it little more than a modern-day poll tax.
“I believe in checks and balances,” McCloy said, “but presenting a photo ID in order to vote is not the solution. We took a stand that a voter ID does not stop or prevent voter fraud. It’s as phony as a three-dollar bill. It doesn’t protect elections at all.”
Even if H.B. 351 or a similar measure became law, there would be no provisions or mechanisms in place to verify IDs.
“Fake IDs can be bought right off the Internet,” she said. “It does not stop a dishonest person from casting a ballot.”
Daren Bakst, director of legal and regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation, said Perdue’s veto was a mistake.
Bakst believes H.B. 351 addressed every significant objection to the law. It provides a free photo ID for any resident who cannot afford one, exempts from the requirement those who don’t believe in taking photos for religious reasons, and allows the use of provisional ballots for those who forget to bring an ID to the polls. Including those provisions in the bill, he says, put the legislation in line with similar laws in other states that have withstood a challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bakst doesn’t understand why a measure intended to enhance the integrity of elections is controversial.
“It’s offensive to me that [opponents] stoop to call the proposal names,” he said. “It is not an attempt to suppress voting in the state. It is an attempt to ensure fair voting and make sure the person voting is the one who should be voting. It’s a very reasonable bill.”
Bakst called the claim by Democrats that there is no voter fraud in the state ludicrous.
“It’s hard to check if you are not looking for it,” he said. “There are plenty of situations where you see that a bunch of dead people have voted, or the records are shoddy. … The point is, we don’t know the extent of the problem.”
After losing his race for sheriff of Washington County, Hassell sought a new election. When the county rejected his request, he paid $27,000 to hire an attorney and get the state involved.
State officials found 600 additional voters who could not produce an affidavit, or verify a legal challenge to their ballots. A new election was ordered, though Hassell did not win.
“Something has to be done,” he said. “If the voter ID law had been in place and the election done properly, I would have been the sheriff now. Now I have to settle on making [the system] more fair for the next person. Otherwise we’ll have the same problem during the next election.”
Karen Welsh is a contributor to Carolina Journal.
Editor’s note: This article was corrected Aug. 30 to identify Joyce McCloy properly.