GROENSBORO, NC — North Carolina’s Super Tuesday election has drawn a lot of voters, with primaries for governor and president in a swing state that will be among the most closely watched in November.
But first, voters must deal with a long list of new laws imposed by Republican lawmakers to ensure they can cast their ballots — and that they will be counted.
This will be the first statewide election that will require voters to present a photo ID to vote in person under a 2018 law that was delayed by lawsuits. A separate law added a requirement that voters who cast ballots by mail include a copy of their photo ID in the envelope. Yet another change approved last year means any ballot received after Tuesday will not be counted, eliminating the previous three-day grace period for ballots postmarked by Election Day.
All this has ended up with local election officials, who not only have to incorporate the new rules into their election preparations, but also have to teach voters how to deal with them.
“If you don’t know if you have the right ID, just bring everything you have,” said Charlie Collicutt, elections director in Guilford County, home to about 377,000 registered voters. “Throw away your wallet and we’ll see if one of your IDs works. And if that’s not the case, we have a procedure for you.’
His advice to voters: be persistent and don’t let the new rules stop you from voting.
The changes in North Carolina were among the most comprehensive state reforms passed last year and continue a trend among Republican state lawmakers, many of whom have passed laws since 2021 adding new voting restrictions. The laws were passed after former President Donald Trump began falsely claiming that widespread fraud cost him his re-election, claims that resonated with many Republicans.
Democrats in North Carolina and elsewhere have criticized many of the new laws as attacks on voting rights that often target minority and low-income voters. North Carolina’s 2023 changes were pushed through without any Democratic support by Republican lawmakers who hold a supermajority in the legislature. They overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, whose final term ends this year.
“They want chaos to continue trying to cover up the fact that Trump tried to steal this election,” Cooper said in an interview. “They are trying to change the laws to gain significant advantage by restricting people’s right to vote.”
Voting by mail has been a major focus of Republican lawmakers in recent years. They have pushed back deadlines for requesting mail-in ballots, added ID requirements and limited third-party ballot collection. Some states have also banned or restricted the use of ballot drop boxes.
In Texas, another state where voting takes place on Tuesday, legal challenges have failed to prevent sweeping changes implemented in 2021 from taking effect. During the state’s 2022 primary, about 13% of mail-in ballots were rejected as voters struggled to navigate the new rules.
One of the new North Carolina laws that has sparked major concerns, a planned overhaul of who chooses state and county election board members, has been put on hold pending a legal challenge.
Republican lawmakers have said the changes are a response to what their constituents say are problems in the recent elections. Although Republicans performed well in the state in 2020, Republican leaders were unhappy with legal action involving the state legislature that extended the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, a change made amid concerns about mail delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new changes include “common sense reforms that restore confidence in our elections,” GOP Senators Paul Newton and Warren Daniel, lead sponsors of the 2023 bills, said in a statement as lawmakers voted to override the governor’s vetoes . “Voters can go to the polls knowing that the election will be conducted in a fair, impartial manner.”
While no major problems have been reported statewide ahead of the final day of voting Tuesday, critics of the changes have warned that many voters could be in danger of having their ballots not counted.
According to state data, more than 12,000 of the 5.5 million counted for the November 2020 election in North Carolina were received and counted in the three days after the general election. Republicans argue that the voting deadline should be the same for everyone and that people will get used to the earlier absentee voting deadline.
“In North Carolina, we had an election system that was tried and true,” said state Rep. Allen Buansi, a Democrat from Chapel Hill. “When you make these kinds of changes to our election systems, without even the consent or negotiation of a minority party — let alone the people of the state who vote — then you are causing enormous damage to our election systems.”
For election officials, the focus has been on educating voters as they enter a presidential election year expected to generate strong interest.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said the agency has launched an advertising campaign for the new ID requirements, including an informational web page and a mailer sent to 4.9 million households ahead of the primaries. Another mailing is planned before the November elections.
“With this primary, we’re going to learn a lot about how far-reaching our message has been in helping voters understand that we do indeed have photo ID, and we’ll continue that message into the fall,” Brinson Bell recently told reporters. month.
Data from last November’s municipal elections, the first time the new voter ID bill was put into use, showed that of the 614,000 ballots cast, fewer than 600 provisional ballots were submitted by people who did not have valid ID at the polls. Just over half of them were eventually counted.
However, voting rights groups released a report after the municipal elections finding that voters who did not have a qualifying ID were treated differently depending on the province and sometimes did not receive an exception form. The State Board of Elections approved rule changes in February to address those concerns.
The new photo ID requirement for mail-in ballots means more materials to be produced, higher shipping costs and more work for local election officials. Olivia McCall, the elections director for Wake County, which has about 823,000 registered voters, said her staff was trying to ensure voting would be seamless.
“Our goal is for people to be able to vote, have a smooth voting experience and say, ‘Hey, this was an easy process,’” she said.
Jeronica Dickerson recently took advantage of early voting at a voting center in Raleigh, the state capital, and said she had no problem with the new voter ID requirement. She found it strange that she did not have to show her ID in previous elections.
“We’re from South Carolina. When we moved here and went to vote, we took out our ID because it was a habit of ours. And they said, ‘Oh no, you don’t need that,'” she said. “So now that this happened, I didn’t think it was weird to show my photo ID.”
But she also said she can understand voters who aren’t used to the new law and might be frustrated if they don’t have the right ID.
Ahead of Tuesday’s primaries, voting advocacy groups across the state have been trying to help voters understand all the new rules.
Common Cause North Carolina has created a 12-page booklet detailing changes made since 2020, including how voters can appeal if they are denied.
Jennifer Rubin, president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, said her group has spent a lot of time explaining the law so voters don’t get frustrated and decide to stay home.
“We try to walk the line between informing and not confusing,” she said. “But there’s a fine line between these changes and people just saying, ‘Oh my God, it sounds confusing. I’m just not going to vote.’”
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Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina, and Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
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