The group filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s 2018 voter ID law. These efforts are often aimed at making it more difficult for minority voters to vote, and they have been criticized by civil rights groups, according to experts and nonprofit voting organizations in the state.īlack and brown voters are less likely to possess any of the acceptable voting IDs, said Kathleen Roblez, the senior voting rights counsel and litigation manager at Forward Justice, a Durham-based nonprofit organization.Īpproximately 7% of registered voters, or more than 480,000 voters, lack an acceptable voter ID, according to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a Durham-based nonprofit group that partners with communities of color in the South and provides them with legal representation. The new requirement is part of a larger trend of voter suppression efforts in North Carolina, sources state. “This is absolutely an anti-Black, anti-brown requirement to our voting process,” said Jovita Lee, the program director at North Carolina Black Alliance, a Raleigh-based nonprofit group that works with state and local partners on policy issues, including voting rights. Experts and voting rights organizations are concerned that this requirement could have a bigger impact on voters of color, possibly preventing them from voting. Starting in August, when early voting for municipal elections begins, North Carolina voters must show a valid photo ID at the polls to vote. “People who have a form of ID are very lucky, especially if they didn’t have to struggle to get it,” Brown said. “I couldn’t get an ID until I had all of this.”īrown said that she could easily have found herself in a situation at the polls this year where she wouldn't have been able to vote if she didn’t get a state ID. “I had to go through all these channels to make a new Social Security card, go to my doctors to get documents from them, get everything notarized and took two trips to my local North Carolina Division of (Motor Vehicles),” she said. She had lost her Social Security card, which made it challenging to get the state-issued ID. While she does not have a valid driver’s license, she does have a state-issued nondriver ID that was difficult to get. “If I had such a hard time getting a state-issued ID as a Black, lower-middle income person, then somebody who is less fortunate than me is going to have an even harder time getting it, and that shouldn’t mean that they aren’t able to vote,” Brown said. Brown said she knew there was talk about a voter identification requirement, but she had no idea it would be enforced in the upcoming local elections. Shalea Brown, 20, is a registered North Carolina voter and works at a mall in Raleigh.
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