Representative Harry Warren
♦As promised last week, this newsletter will focus only on the Voter ID bill that was passed by the General Assembly last week. The bill, HB 589 – VIVA/ELECTION REFORM, was passed to the Senate in April by the House as “HB 589 - The Voter Information Verification Act,” short title, VIVA. When the House passed VIVA to the Senate, it was a comprehensive, 16-page, three-part bill with 22 sections that was concerned only with the validation of voter identity in order to protect the integrity of the balloting process and the security of the vote. Work on the bill began on July 19, 2012, and over the course of nearly a year of research and drafting, due diligence was given to the voting procedures in more than thirty other states with some form of voter identification, the requirements of compliance to the “pre-clearance” process of the court, as mandated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and listening to many hours of public comment, primarily from opponents to voter identification. The bill was crafted with serious consideration to the views and criticism of the opponents to a voter identification process and as a result, VIVA included reforms and enhancements to every aspect of the balloting process including curbside voting, provisional balloting and absentee voting in addition to in-person balloting. Military and overseas voting are covered under separate federal legislation.
VIVA was passed to the Senate on April 24, 2013, and sat in the Senate Rules Committee for many weeks while the Senate waited for the outcome of the US Supreme Court ruling on the Voter Rights Act. In June, with a 5 – 4 vote, the Supreme Court rule that Section four of the VRA was outdated and, until such time as the US Congress would update the section, the Voter Rights Act was rendered invalid. This decision rendered Section 5 of the bill invalid and released at least nine states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) and scores of counties and municipalities in other states, including 40 North Carolina Counties, from adherence to the 48-year-old law. Without “Pre-Clearance” of any changes to election law required by a VRA Court, the Senate began to act on HB 589, and within a matter of weeks, returned HB 589 – VIVA/ELECTION REFORM to the House for a vote of“Concurrence” with the changes made to VIVA.
The Senate changes to VIVA included eliminating the VIVA outreach program for education and registration, reducing the number of acceptable forms of ID and expanding the 16-page bill to 56 pages. The bill has 60 parts containing reforms to early voting, straight party ticket voting, same-day registration, elimination of a “pre-registration” program for 16 and 17-year-olds and much more. The House received the bill within the last hours of the session and the bill was not eligible for amendments. Like the budget Conference Report, HB 589 was a straight vote to “concur” or “not to concur” with the changes. The final vote, after several hours of debate, was predictably along party lines with 73 Republicans voting for the measure (Representatives Howard, Cleveland, Lambeth and Szoka had excused absences) and 41 Democrats (Representatives Brisson and Insko had excused absences) voting against the bill.
Among the additions to VIVA, the Senate added another one of my bills, HB 11 “Special Election Dates,” to it. HB 11 was passed to the Senate on April 4, 2013, with a unanimous, bipartisan vote of 115 – 0. It also sat in the Senate Rules Committee while they contemplated crafting an Omnibus Elections Bill, including the provisions that they ultimately incorporated into VIVA. It is a fairly safe assumption that had the Supreme Court ruling gone the other way, HB 589 – VIVA would have come back to the House with some minor changes and the HB 11 – Special Elections would have been included with the omnibus legislation. You may recall from earlier newsletters that HB 11 – Special Election Dates is a very good bill requiring that all referendums and special elections, with some exceptions for safety and health issues, must be held during a municipal or county general election. This will ensure that tax hikes and special indebtedness will be voted on by the greatest number of citizens and reflect a more accurate account of the will of the people. Additionally, this will save counties hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
There is a 14-page, part-by-part explanation of the various sections of the HB 589. This will be an extremely easy way to understand the various aspects of the bill, mostly in layman’s terminology. If you would like a copy of this explanation, please click here and place “HB 589 Summary” in the subject line.
This bill is one of thirty bills that remain on the Governor’s desk at this time, waiting his signature to turn it into law.
Thank you for the opportunity to have represented District 77 during this long session. I look forward to continuing to serve Rowan County in the upcoming “short” session, which is scheduled to reconvene on May 14, 2014.
N.C. House of Representatives District 77, Rowan County
611 Legislative Office Building Raleigh,
North Carolina 27603
(919) 733-5784
