One Card, One Vote – Tell UNC Chapel Hill to immediately print physical One Cards at no cost for all students

Yesterday Democracy Docket reported that the Republican National Committee (RNC) and North Carolina Republican Party (NC GOP) have challenged the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ (NCSBE) approval of a digital form of in-person voter identification for students and employees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). 

This is, to put it bluntly, a fucking nightmare.

Here’s why: North Carolina voters are required to show photo ID when they check in to vote. The only student IDs that can be used for voting are those that meet state law requirements that they include a clear photo and are issued through a process that confirms the student’s identity. Before this school year, every student received a UNC One Card as a physical card with a student’s photo, and they were and remain on the list of voter IDs approved by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE). Physical One Cards remain approved for voting, but it currently costs $10 dollars to obtain a physical One Card, and so few if any freshmen or new graduate students have them.

This year UNC switched to digital One Cards. That means thousands of new students only have digital One Cards and could reasonably expect to be able to use those digital One Cards as proof of ID to vote.

In June, UNC submitted an application for approval of digital One Cards for voting. In the application and emails with NCSBE, As the application demonstrate, these digital ID cards meet all of the standards established in state law.

On Tuesday August 20th, by a 3-2 vote, the NCSBE approved the use of UNC Chapel Hill’s digital One Card as an identification card to prove the user’s identity during voting. As we discussed, it’s a big deal, as digital One Cards are now the default ID type for UNC Chapel Hill students.

Lee Roberts and other university leaders must speak up

It’s important that UNC leadership respond to this threat to students’ ability to vote in the upcoming election. At the very least, UNC should quickly implement a plan through which students who only have a digital One Card can receive a physical One Card at no cost to students. UNC should be proactive about alerting students to the risk posed by the lawsuit rather than relying on students to monitor the threat and expecting them to determine if and when to get a physical One Card. 

At best, Chancellor Lee Roberts could leverage his considerable influence among NC Republicans to push for the case to be rescinded. He should publicly support UNC staffers who diligently applied for and received approval of the digital One Cards for voting and affirm that the measures UNC has in place to protect digital IDs are secure and consistent with NCSBE’s requirements. And he should unambiguously state UNC’s plan and timeline for delivering physical One Cards to students before early voting begins on October 17.       

Roberts thought it was important to speak out about the importance of protecting the flag last spring. Surely he will speak out in favor of protecting voting for students on campus. Doing so will affirm his commitment to serving all UNC students and employees – including Republicans and Democrats – whose enfranchisement may be affected by this lawsuit. 

(And please, Chancellor Roberts, no empty rhetoric about letting the case work its way through the courts. It’s 2024 and we live in North Carolina. Believing the courts are fair and impartial in this day and age is like believing ESPN’s coverage of Duke basketball EVERY SINGLE SEASON is fair and impartial.)

We are launching a petition to ask  UNC Chapel Hill to immediately implement a plan to print physical One Cards at no cost to students and email students with instructions on how to receive them.

Share this post with others and ask them to sign – every UNC alumni, student, parent, and community member you know.

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