NC bill passes to expand voting by mail for 2020 elections, heads to Gov. Cooper’s desk
A new bill on its way to Gov. Roy Cooper to approve or veto will make it easier for people to vote by mail in November, with officials expecting coronavirus will cause many to stay away from poll sites.
The bill would also spend millions of dollars on making sure polling places are as sanitary as possible for people who still want to go in person, plus millions more on other elections costs, such as increased cybersecurity.
The bill had originally passed the N.C. House in late May with near-unanimous support. But when it came to the Senate Wednesday night, most of the Democrats there said it was too flawed for them to support.
A voter ID provision in the bill led to accusations of racism and voter suppression, and others said the bill doesn’t do enough to prevent long lines at poll sites in North Carolina in November, as was recently seen in Georgia and Wisconsin.
“We can look to Georgia yesterday and see the need for changes,” said Sen. Kirk deViere, a Fayetteville Democrat, who voted against the bill Wednesday.
After passing the Senate, it came back to the House for a final vote Thursday afternoon. One of the Democrats who co-sponsored the bill said if it doesn’t pass, people can expect to see those lines and other issues in North Carolina.
“There’s so much in this bill that’s going to make our elections safer and more secure. And if you saw the pictures from Georgia or Wisconsin ... you understand why that’s important,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat.
The elections bill passed the House nearly unanimously last month, 116-3. But when it passed 35-12 in the Senate Wednesday, all of the Republicans supported it while the Democrats were split.
On Thursday, it passed again in the House, 105-14.
The bill contains several changes Democrats have pushed for. It also contains some provisions Republicans wanted, like banning North Carolina from going to 100% vote-by-mail elections like some other states.
The bill would also allow polling precincts to use volunteers who don’t live in that precinct, due to fears that coronavirus will lead to fewer people volunteering this year. The average poll worker in North Carolina is 70.
However, for some Democrats, a section in the bill on voter ID was a deal-breaker.
Voter ID in North Carolina
Voter ID has temporarily been blocked by two different courts that have said the state’s 2018 law appears to have been crafted with racist intentions to try to prevent blacks from being able to vote. A 2013 voter ID law was struck down as unconstitutional for the same reason in 2016.
But those court cases aren’t over yet, so if the Republican lawmakers defending voter ID end up winning in court in the next few months, voters would need to bring ID to the polls for this November’s election.
The provision in this bill would loosen the rules if that does happen, adding public assistance IDs as another acceptable form of photo identification for voting.
The two parties’ stances on the issue now are a complete reversal from just a few months ago, when Democrats were arguing for public assistance IDs to count as valid voter IDs but Republicans refused.
Since then, Democrats have sued twice — and won twice — using the lack of public assistance IDs as one example of the “racially discriminatory intent” that the judges said appears to be driving voter ID in North Carolina.
Both sides now are accusing each other of playing politics with their reversals, each saying the other party is only changing its stance now because of how it might affect the lawsuits.
One Republican lawmaker said Democrats were “disingenuous” if they voted against the bill over the public assistance ID provision, since they had been asking for it to be included just a few months ago.
“That’s all it does,” said Republican Sen. Warren Daniel of Morganton.
“I want to bring us back to some actual facts,” Daniel said, speaking up after a fiery speech by Democratic Sen. Gladys Robinson of Greensboro that contained accusations of racism.
Robinson had spoken at length, detailing the ways in which she believed her GOP counterparts are continuing to discriminate against black people like herself — especially in efforts to keep them from voting.
A few minutes earlier, Republicans had shot down a proposed amendment to the bill by Sen. Ben Clark, a Hoke County Democrat, that would have prevented voter ID from being in place for the 2020 elections — no matter what happens in the various court cases.
“And what we see going on in this country is an outrage of disenfranchisement,” Robinson said. “So if we have any sensitivity toward any of the people who look like me and have been disenfranchised over centuries ... It is simple to adopt the amendment from Sen. Clark that would take out that egregious language.”
While Daniel said he and other Republicans disagree with court rulings that have found racist intent behind voter ID laws, Robinson said she could not say everything she felt because it would violate the Senate’s rules on decorum.
“To people like my little grandson who has to grow up, why would you put things like this in the bill?” she said. “You’re taking shots. You’re taking shots, again, at African-Americans.”
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This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 7:58 PM.
