Thursday’s change to the rule brought lukewarm support from opponents of voter ID laws and quick criticism from advocates.
“It’s a shame to lose a court case without ever walking into court,” said Francis De Luca, president of the Civitas Institute, a conservative organization that lobbied for voter ID rules.
The Rev. William J. Barber II, the head of the state NAACP who was arrested on Wednesday while protesting the N.C. voting laws at the N.C. General Assembly, said Thursday “the bill is still bad and racially disparate.”
…Susan Myrick, elections policy analyst for Civitas Institute, said Thursday that she was caught off guard by the Senate vote.
“To say the least, we were surprised,” Myrick said. The provisional ballot addition, she said, “guts” the ID rule. “It demolishes it,” Myrick said. “There’s no voter ID in North Carolina. It’s over.”