I’m wondering, how does someone attend a major university without a state issued ID?
Voters without photo ID run into new election rules
Lisa Guraya wasn’t surprised earlier this month when poll workers at an early voting site near Duke University told her she didn’t have the right kind of photo identification, but the sophomore knew she should be allowed to vote anyway.
She is one of at least 864 voters across the North Carolina who came out to vote early in person but did not have an acceptable ID with them during the first election they have been required in the state.
More than half of those who lacked ID just forgot their documents and will be able to bring an ID card to their local board of elections office. But Guraya is among the 378 who, as of Saturday afternoon, said they do not have a North Carolina driver’s license, U.S. passport or other acceptable identity document.
Well, it might be the case because she seems to be a resident of Alabama, not North Carolina. WRAL is rather cagey about the whole thing, and either forgot to do that whole journalism thing or is intentionally not letting the readers know.
In Guraya’s case, she had only her Alabama driver’s license. Under new voting rules, she was able to claim a “reasonable impediment” to having the correct ID, but she said the process wasn’t smooth.
Just because one attends school in North Carolina doesn’t give them the right to vote in NC elections. When I attended ECU, I was a New Jersey resident till 1990, hence, I sent in absentee ballots.
“The person who I asked wasn’t even sure at first how to do a reasonable impediment ballot,” recalled Guraya, who has more reason than most undergraduates to be well versed on voter ID laws. She’s from Shelby County, Ala., from whence the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder originated. That decision helped pave the way for voter ID laws like North Carolina’s.
“It just made me not completely sure my vote was going to go through,” she said.
Well, if she’s not an NC resident, then she should understand she cannot vote here.
Guraya said that, during her trip home this summer, she will be able to retrieve her passport in order to vote in the November general election. Down the road in Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina sophomore Isatta Feika says she likely won’t vote in North Carolina again after experiencing the hassles involving voting with an ID in North Carolina.
Why not vote in Alabama? Or, is she trying to do both? Another option would have been to change her state residency from Alabama to NC, which she should have known to do long ago. Nor does the article explain where Isatta Feika is from.
As for the roughly half who forgot their ID, let me know how that works when you try and take an airplane flight, take a tour of the White House, etc.
