From a student at North Carolina State, Logan Graham:
So, off I headed to the Department of Registration and Records and, after a quick five-minute wait, I had an official transcript in hand. Time wise, gaining the second form of ID had been quite easy, but, unfortunately the transcript wasn’t free. It cost me $12 to get the stamped, official transcript the DMV required — suddenly, the free voter ID was no longer free.
Yet, nevertheless, I had my IDs in hand, and I set off to the DMV. For the next three hours, however, I ended up traversing buses around the city. I was turned down at the DMV and shipped off at the Wake County Board of Elections, but, at the Board of Elections, I was again turned down, told that I was in fact supposed to get my voter ID at the DMV. Armed with pamphlets from the Board of Elections that clearly specified the DMV had to provide me with an ID, I was ready to return to the DMV. Unfortunately, after spending three hours riding buses around Raleigh, the DMV had shut down for the night. So instead I returned back to campus. In a day where I had spent $12 and three hours trying to track down an ID, I had nothing to show for my work.
The next day I was back at it. In the middle of the day, I had a three-hour break between classes which, I could only assume would give me enough time to gain the ID. When I arrived at the DMV the second time, I was armed with the pamphlets I had been given at the Board of Elections, and was quickly allowed to enter. Yet, moving past the front desk, I was met with a long line. For two hours I waited in the line waiting for my number to be heard, for two hours I listened to the same robotic voice calling out numbers, and for two hours my number was never called. Finally, with my afternoon classes just a half hour away, I had to call it. I left the DMV, boarded another bus back to campus, and still had no more IDs than I had started with two days earlier.
In total, I’ve spent $12 and six hours trying to get an ID. If I include the cost of time wasted set at North Carolina’s minimum wage of $7.25, my attempt to gain an ID has cost $55.50 so far. The stipulation, then, that a voter ID is free and simple to obtain, is completely inaccurate when we put the process into action.
Today, as my quest for a voter ID continues, I’m hesitant to go back and spend another three hours waiting in line, only to be forced to give up and return back to campus for class. All college students are busy, and the out-of-state students who need another ID to vote simply don’t have enough time to spend waiting in lines at the DMV to get one.