These 7 changes to NC voting laws will confuse and alienate voters | Opinion

The League of Women Voters has been protecting voters’ rights for over 100 years. We are stalwart defenders of democracy, and we want all voters to exercise their right to cast a ballot.

Since the 2020 presidential election, we have watched the integrity of our voting process be attacked and misrepresented. While no North Carolina county results, races or voter eligibility was disputed in the 2020 election, forces in the election denier movement have decided that our election laws need to be changed — and those changes will inevitably make voting more difficult in North Carolina.

Our analysis of the two North Carolina Senate bills (SB747 and SB749) and N.C. House Bill 772 shows that the outcome of these pieces of legislation will be to gum up a process that was working well. In other words, this anti-voter legislation is designed to address problems that do not exist. And these new laws have the potential to confuse, alienate and disenfranchise voters.

As the N.C. House takes up these bills in the next few weeks, we are likely to see even more changes, all of which will make voting more confusing and difficult for voters. Recent reporting on the Voter/Photo ID requirement has only added to this confusion.

Here’s a round-up of election law changes and the hurdles we see:

▪ Voter ID is coming to North Carolina. The first election in which voters will have to show ID is the 2023 municipal elections, which begin in September. But most voters are unaware of many of the details of Voter ID. They may need help getting an acceptable ID and they do not know how to get their ballot accepted if they don’t have an acceptable ID.

▪ Same-day registration and early voting are critical to the way voters access the polls. New legislation will put restrictions on same-day registration that may result in legitimate ballots being designated as “provisional” and risk being rejected before final votes are certified.

▪ Voting absentee will not only require a two-witness/notary requirement, but voters will need to attach a photocopy of their ID. Not only is this a cumbersome additional step, but it is not clear how these copies — which include dates of birth and other identifying information — will be kept private. This opens absentee voters up to potential identity theft.

▪ Eliminating three-day grace period for receiving absentee ballots, as SB 747 would, will invalidate many absentee ballots.

▪ Proposed legislation also gives a green light to individuals and groups to challenge any voter’s absentee ballot and question that person’s right to vote. It also allows anyone who wants to observe absentee ballot counts to do so. This is all an affront to voter privacy.

▪ In Senate Bill 749, legislators plan to restructure how North Carolina’s State Board of Elections members are appointed, setting up a partisan split with the tie-breaking vote given to the legislature. This is clearly a process designed to circumvent normal checks and balances.

▪ House Bill 772 loosens regulations for polling place observers, adding another element of management and training to local boards of elections, whose funding is being cut. Further, voters will have difficulty distinguishing between authorized election officials and partisan political workers.

The proposed voter legislation has so far evaded a process of extensive public input. And while most people don’t think much about voting until elections are upon them, confusion, intimidation, long lines and more, will occur if these bills become law.

We must speak out against these proposals, which will make it much harder for people to vote and damage our democracy. Changing election laws based on groundless claims of fraud can discourage people from voting and will sow distrust between the governed and their government. The citizens of North Carolina deserve better.

Jennifer McMillan Rubin is president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina. She lives in Durham.