New Voter ID Bill Filed Further Expands Accepted IDs

RALEIGH – Initial hearings have taken place this week on how to implement the Voter ID Constitutional Amendment approved by voters earlier this month. Aside from the typical over the top claims from the Left of racist motivations behind the policy, there have been more reasonable requests for expanding the list of acceptable identification.

Those requests were incorporated into a bill late Tuesday filed by Republican Senators Krawiec and Daniel, joined by Democrat Senator Joel Ford. The expanded list includes private college and community college IDs (in addition to the UNC system student IDs), along with state and local government IDs.

Requests for these inclusions during debate and comments on the initial bill highlighted that such IDs were sufficient for pure identification purposes. As such, expired IDs can also be used as long as the expiration has been no longer than one year. That makes sense. Still, most Democrats will oppose the bills no matter how expansive the ID list becomes due to the minority Party’s commitment to opposing any and all Republican actions.

Sen. Joel Ford (D-Mecklenburg) is, and has been, a notable exception to a such blind opposition, proving that again with his primary sponsor role on this legislation. There are a handful of Democrats across the two state legislative chambers that fit into that mold. During this special session the Republicans don;t necessarily need them to override gubernatorial vetoes, but their profiles will heighten considerably in the new legislative session with reduced Republican majorities.

As the list of reasonable objections to how Voter ID is implemented all but disappears the Democratic activists will be left with only their smear campaigns. An issue voters have already weighed, measured, and found wanting. Don’t expect that reality, though, to diminish their social justice fervor by a single ounce.