Grasping at straws: First hearing on Voter ID bill draws predictable opposition from Left

RALEIGH – Earlier this month the voters of North Carolina decided that having a photo identification requirement to vote in the Old North State made a lot of sense, approving a Constitutional Amendment to make it part of casting a ballot. Now, the state legislature is tasked with filling out the details of this requirement, from the type of accepted identification, to how people that show up without it will be treated.

The draft legislation was released last week, but the first hearing on the bill itself was held Monday. Lawmakers heard from representatives from the N.C. Community College System, and the N.C. Independent Colleges & Universities, among others, who requested lawmakers include more and more forms of identification in the accepted list.

The appeal is the same as it ever was for those that view the requirement for photo identification as a form of suppression. ‘That group and this group don’t have ID, so not including them is discriminatory in one way or another’, the logic goes. There were even appeals to consider the disabled and immobile voters that cannot make the trip to the county boards of elections to get a free voter ID card made for them. How those voters plan to get to the polls when they can’t get to the county boards of elections is a good question. Absentee voting still will not be subject to voter I.D. requirements.

Teasing out all the intricacies of actually implementing this law is normal and necessary, of course, but it didn’t take long for the race card to get pulled out.

The public comment period was replete with suggestions that the legislation, as is, will disproportionately affect minority populations.

Said one commenter:

“It’s clear from the evidence in court from the 2013 voter ID bill that blacks were less likely to have proper ID under that bill than whites. While this legislation is certainly broader than the 2013 bill in acceptable IDs, it still in its current form leaves a significant burden based on race.

Just as importantly, if we set up an election administration system that is disparate, with black voters more likely to have to use time consuming provisional ballots than whites, the disparate nature in itself can be a constitutional violation. Please cure that disparity, using suggestions I and others will make.”

The Left always seems to fall back on the racism charge, and, with it, demonstrate their own soft bigotry of low expectations. There is a solution to not having your vote take longer to process – get a valid and accepted ID. Why does the Left think black voters are incapable of doing that?

With all of the forms of ID this bill will end up validating as worthy to cast a vote; the opportunity to get free ID from the county; the reasonable impediment allowances; the normal provisional process for those with out ID; and on, and on, the legitimate reasons to oppose the implementation of a requirement supported by voters themselves have evaporated.

So, the Left has no choice but to grasp at straws in a futile, and concerning, attempt to resist simple measures that establish integrity at the ballot box.  Measures that are now part of the N.C. Constitution. The Left just doesn’t know when to quit.