North Carolina Governor Signs Voter ID Bill
North Carolina Governor Pat McCroy has signed a law requiring government-issued IDs at polls.
The measure also narrowed the window for early voting.
This attack on the voting rights of North Carolina residents has activists and community members up in arms. The ACLU has announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against parts of the measure.
Republicans lawmakers who backed the measure said it was meant to prevent voter fraud, which they allege is both rampant and undetected in North Carolina. Independent voting rights groups joined Democrats and libertarians in suggesting the true goal was to suppress voter turnout, especially among traditional Democratic constituencies such as blacks, the young, the elderly and the poor.
“It is a trampling on the blood, sweat and tears of the martyrs — black and white — who fought for voting rights in this country,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the NAACP, which is pressing its own legal challenge. “It puts McCrory on the wrong side of history.”
North Carolina is among a number of states with GOP strongholds that have passed stricter voter identification laws, redrawn political maps fortifying Republican majorities and reduced early voting under President Barack Obama.
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