Every registered voter in Macon County was recently sent a card in the mail.
On that card, was the list of forms of identification that would be accepted at the polls in 2020, after North Carolina’s voter ID law went into effect.
For more than a year, the NC State Board of Elections has been working with local boards to hammer out the process by which the law would be implemented following a popular vote that approved voter ID via an amendment to the state’s Constitution in 2018.
While the state board of elections has been hard at work determining the parameters for instituting the voter ID law, a challenge to the law has been batted around in the court system.
Last week, federal judge Loretta Biggs temporary halted the implementation of the voter ID law. N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein then indicated that his office would wait for another court ruling before deciding how to proceed, meaning that voter ID is off the table for the 2020 primary election in March and possibly the general election in November.
While the merits of the voter ID law can be debated at length, proponents point to similar laws that have held up in court over time in other states as a means to prevent voter fraud. Opponents of the law believe that it was crafted as a way to suppress voter turnout, specifically in districts that feature large numbers of minority voters, who are statistically less likely to have a state-issued photo ID.
No matter which side of the debate ends up winning out, one thing is certain. The voter ID law, subsequent court battles, and the implementation of the law have already cost North Carolina a large sum of money and man hours. Legal fights aren’t cheap, nor were the mailers sent to registered voters, nor are the board of elections staff hours spent training and re-training poll workers in each county.
The challenge to the voter ID law will likely end up in the Supreme Court, where a final decision will be rendered, but there is no timeline for when that may happen. Until that time, the voter ID law will continue to cost the state money and create confusion for boards of elections, poll workers and most importantly – voters.