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    Senior Member florgal's Avatar
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    NC: Governor McCrory signs controversial elections bill

    Posted on: 2:53 pm, August 12, 2013, by Web Staff, updated on: 02:54pm, August 12, 2013








    Gov. Pat McCrory

    RALEIGH, N.C. – Governor Pat McCrory signed a controversial bill Monday that will cause widespread changes to North Carolina’s elections process, according to WRAL-TV.
    House Bill 589 will require North Carolina voters to present photo identification when they go to the polls starting in 2016.
    It also makes dozens of other changes to how the state conducts elections, which will start taking effect this fall and continue through 2014 and beyond.
    It will require voters to present a government-issued photo identification at the polls, shorten the early voting period by a week, eliminate same-day voter registration, eliminate straight-party ticket voting and eliminate a program encouraging high school students to register to vote before turning 18.
    Read more: WRAL-TV

    http://myfox8.com/2013/08/12/governo...lections-bill/

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    Thank goodness! I was beginning to wonder...
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    The Department of Justice of the Democratic Party will of course protest. Elections without fraud could end their reign.

    North Carolina governor signs extensive Voter ID law


    By Aaron Blake, Published: August 12
    North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) on Monday signed into law one of the nation’s most wide-ranging Voter ID laws.

    The move is likely to touch off a major court battle over voting rights, and the Justice Department is weighing a challenge to the new law, which is the first to pass since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act.


    (Rob Taylor/AP Photo/The Daily Reflector)

    The measure requires voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls and shortens the early voting period from 17 to 10 days. It will also end pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-old voters who will be 18 on Election Day and eliminates same-day voter registration.

    Democrats and minority groups have been fighting against the changes, arguing that they represent an effort to suppress the minority vote and the youth vote, along with reducing Democrats’ advantage in early voting. They point out that there is little documented evidence of voter fraud.

    Republicans say that the efforts are necessary to combat such fraud and that shortening the window for early voting will save the state money. They also note that, while the North Carolina law makes many changes to how the state conducts its elections, most of its major proposals — specifically, Voter ID and ending same-day registration — bring it in line with many other states. More than three-fifths of states currently have some kind of Voter ID law, and even more have no same-day registration. Not all states allow in-person early voting.

    “While some will try to make this seem to be controversial, the simple reality is that requiring voters to provide a photo ID when they vote is a common-sense idea,” McCrory said in a statement. “This new law brings our state in line with a healthy majority of other states throughout the country. This common-sense safeguard is commonplace.”

    A spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association said McCrory’s “cynical” move will come back to haunt him.

    “When he ran for governor, Pat McCrory pretended to be a moderate pragmatist,” the spokesman, Danny Kanner, said. “Today, he proved that he’s just another cynical, ultra-conservative ideologue intent on disenfranchising voters who might not be inclined to vote Republican.”
    While there is significant resistance to Voter ID laws on the left, polls generally show the American people support them by large margins. Recent North Carolina polls and a Washington Post poll last year showed nearly three-quarters support requiring voters to show photo ID.

    The Post poll also showed, though, that Americans are split when it comes to whether it’s more important to fight voter suppression or to combat voter fraud. And while Voter ID polls popularly, the bill covers much more than that.

    Several similar efforts have passed in recent years in other states with Republican-controlled state legislatures and GOP governors, but North Carolina’s has drawn a particularly high degree of backlash from the left, given how far-reaching and all-inclusive the new law is.

    The Justice Department has suggested it will fight the new law, which comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. States like North Carolina are no longer required to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department for such changes after the Court struck down the formula used for determining which states and jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression require preclearance.

    The Justice Department is also looking to challenge a new Voter ID law in Texas and has also fought against a new Voter ID law in Florida.

    The other big change in the law — a reduction in the number of early-voting days — could diminish Democrats’ historical advantage in early voting, which accounted for more than half of ballots cast in North Carolina last year.

    But Republicans note that the law still requires the same number of hours of early voting — just over a smaller period of time. County election officials can either extend hours on a given day or provide more early voting locations.

    Other provisions in the new North Carolina law would prohibit paid voter registration drives, end straight-ticket voting (in which a voter can vote for all candidates of one party by voting just once — another area in which Democrats benefit) and loosening restrictions on poll watchers who can challenge a voter’s eligibility.

    The state legislature gave the law final approval in late July.

    The changes come as the state has fallen under Republican control for the first time in more than a century. North Carolina’s state legislature went Republican for the first time since Reconstruction after the 2010 election. McCrory then won in 2012, becoming the state’s first Republican governor since the early 1990s.

    McCrory also recently signed an extensive new abortion restrictions law – another move that has earned him significant opposition from the political left.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-voter-id-law/



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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    North Carolina's sweeping voter ID law faces legal challenge

    Published August 13, 2013FoxNews.com


    • FILE: Jan. 5, 2013: Then-Gov.-elect Pat McCrory is sworn in as North Carolina governor in the House chamber of the old Capitol building in Raleigh, N.C. (AP)

      North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday signed into law changes in how residents can vote that includes requiring them to show a photo ID at polling stations, a move that triggered threats of legal action from the NAACP and other groups.

      The American Civil Liberties Union joined two other groups in announcing that they were filing suit against key parts of the package. This came hours after McCrory said in a statement that he had signed the measure, without a ceremony.

      “Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

      McCrory, a Republican, also said residents “overwhelmingly” support the “common sense” law and that North Carolina is following 34 other states in requiring some form of vote ID.

      "While some will try to make this seem to be controversial, the simple reality is that requiring voters to provide a photo ID when they vote is a common sense idea,” McCrory also said. “This new law brings our state in line with a healthy majority of other states throughout the country.”

      The suit specifically targets the parts of the law that eliminate a week of early voting, end same-day registration, and prohibit "out-of-precinct" voting.
      The changes will not take effect until the 2016 elections, the governor said in a 95-second video his office posted on YouTube.

      The new law allows voters to cast a provisional ballot if they come to a polling station without proper ID. The hours to cast an early ballot remain the same, and there will be 10 days for voters to cast their ballot early.

      However, the new law will not allow a person to register and vote on the same day. Other changes include an effort to reduce the “pay-to-play” culture of politics by placing additional campaign finance restrictions on lobbyists, according to the governor’s office.

      Supporters of the legislation say it is meant to prevent voter fraud, which they claim is both rampant and undetected.

      Critics, including Democrats and libertarians, suggested the true goal is to suppress voter turnout, especially among blacks, the young, the elderly and the poor.

      North Carolina is among a number of states with GOP strongholds that have passed stricter voter identification laws, redrawn political maps fortifying Republican majorities and reduced early voting under President Barack Obama.

      Such states claimed victory after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in June, effectively wiped out part of the landmark Voting Rights Act that required federal "preclearance" of election-law changes in all or parts of 15 mostly Southern states with a history of discrimination. The law was enacted during the 1960s to outlaw racial discrimination against voters.

      That high court ruling cleared the way for North Carolina's Republican leadership to enact voting law changes without prior federal approval.

      However, the Obama administration has signaled that it plans to take on some states over potentially discriminatory changes. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in July that the U.S. Justice Department would challenge a new voter identification law in Texas and previously suggested the department was closely watching developments in North Carolina and in other states.

      http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...#ixzz2brvizS6r
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