Image: onecard.unc.edu
The debate over who should be able to vote in U.S. elections is, of course, as old as the republic. For two-and-a-half centuries, members of the nation’s economic and political elites have sought to limit the franchise to favored groups that more closely resemble themselves, while denying it to others.
In the colonial days, it was only white men of property who could vote. The Constitution expanded that to the nation’s white male “inhabitants” and during the centuries that followed, white women and then people of color finally obtained the right. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.
But, as anyone who’s been paying attention is well aware, the matter is not and has not ever been completely settled. Today’s debates are more subtle – few people will publicly admit a blatant desire to prevent entire races, genders or classes from voting or influencing elections – but the centuries-old campaign by people of wealth and privilege to thwart the voting rights of those who lack it persists.
This is particularly true in the South, where despite the delusional pronouncements of the U.S. Supreme Court a decade ago, relentless efforts by conservative white politicians to limit voting by disfavored groups – particularly Black citizens — never stopped.
A goodly part of this effort takes the form of gerrymandering – that is rigging electoral districts to guarantee certain outcomes by corralling voters of color into districts that dilute their overall power. North Carolina Republicans have been especially adept at this tactic and have gotten so skilled at it (and concocting legal explanations to excuse and justify it), that they now readily and publicly concede that it is a cornerstone of their governing strategy.
But another component of modern voter suppression efforts involves the pursuit of what the political right misleadingly describes as “election integrity.” Here, the goal is to make voting more of a chore – especially for younger, non-white, non-wealthy voters who, it is assumed, are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Fanning the flames of public distrust and paranoia in order to Donald Trump’s false claims is a bonus benefit.
Tactics include:
limiting early voting and voting by mail
making it harder to register to vote
imposing photo ID requirements
conducting voter roll purges that are more likely to burden lower wealth citizens who change addresses more frequently
sending partisan observers into polling places
closing polling places in lower income and college neighborhoods
promoting false narratives about noncitizen voting
dirty tricks like misleading social media posts and phony robocalls designed to confuse voters
Several of these tactics have been on display again in key presidential election swing states in recent days in a series of lawsuits filed by Republicans and right-wing advocacy groups against state election officials.
The suits filed in North Carolina are typical. One seeks to purge 225,000 people from the voter rolls in violation of federal law.
And last week, another was filed seeking to bar UNC-Chapel Hill students from using their digital ID cards (known as the “One Card”) to vote – the only official credential they need and use for all kinds of basic campus ID purposes, including, for instance, safe entry into dorms. (On Monday, a Wake County judge delayed a hearing on a GOP request a temporary restraining order in the case till Thursday afternoon.)
The stated reason for all of these lawsuits and similar actions is to prevent corruption and voter fraud, but as dozens of experts have repeatedly demonstrated and common sense confirms, widespread voter fraud is simply an illusory problem.
First of all, voter fraud – pretending to be someone you are not, voting multiple times or when you’re ineligible — is a serious felony that’s very hard to commit. Second, enabling and convincing enough people to commit such felonies in numbers sufficient to sway an election of any size is almost impossible. That’s why it almost never happens.
Indeed, bipartisan experts have repeatedly testified that North Carolina is home to some of the nation’s most honest and transparent elections – elections, notably, that Republicans have dominated for decades in presidential contests.
Ironically, the state’s only major voting scandal in modern times involved an illegal scheme in 2018 by the campaign of Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris to “harvest” a handful of absentee ballots in rural Bladen County. The scheme was later exposed and resulted in criminal convictions, an election do-over that another GOP candidate won, and some strengthened procedures.
Now, six years later, in a “you can’t make this stuff up” development, the man whose campaign orchestrated the scheme, Mark Harris, is once again a Republican nominee for Congress – this time in a district rigged through gerrymandering to guarantee his election in the fall.
So much for Republican concerns about election integrity.
In short, like so many other actions designed to make voting more complicated and inaccessible to average citizens, the student ID lawsuit has nothing to do with genuine security concerns. Rather, it’s another blatant and meritless effort to suppress voters the GOP fears will support Democratic candidates while promoting further distrust in election outcomes. The courts should toss it out.