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Voting to Require ID in North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has required that voting require an ID at the voting poll. The NCAACP and other groups may seek to challenge this law. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a suit against the package. The Governor argues, “getting on an airplane or buying Sudafed requires a photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote.”

The republican governor acknowledged that residents overwhelmingly supported the ‘common sense’ law, and that North Carolina is “following 34 other states” in the ID requirement at the voting poll. In an effort to impact voting fraud, the ID requirement is only one target; other aspects eliminated by the law include a week of early voting, ‘out-of-precinct’ voting and same-day registration. North Carolina sides with several other GOP states that have recently passed stricter voter identification laws and have refigured political maps as well as reduced early voting under the Obama administration.

The high court allowed North Carolina to enact voting changes without federal approval, however the Obama administration plans to challenge the voter identification laws in several states over ‘potential discrimination’ charges. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder commented that the Justice Department would challenge the new voter identification law that is in place in Texas, while also suggesting that the Justice department is ‘closely watching developments in North Carolina and other states.”

Jaan: