@NCCapitol

Voter ID backers cite Russian threat

New campaign signs around the Triangle Monday were using the threat of Russian hackers to promote passage of a proposed constitutional amendment requiring photo identification to vote.

Posted Updated
Russians Voter ID campaign sign
By
Laura Leslie
, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief
RALEIGH, N.C. — New campaign signs around the Triangle Monday were using the threat of Russian hackers to promote passage of a proposed constitutional amendment requiring photo identification to vote.

"Save our Vote from the Russians for our children," the sign reads, sporting a hammer-and-sickle and a photograph of a young child flying a kite. "Photo ID – Vote YES."

The signs were paid for by Secure the Vote NC, an independent political action committee affiliated with the Voter Integrity Project, a group with a long history of activism against what it claims is undetected voter fraud in North Carolina.

No one to date has accused Russian agents of impersonating anyone at the polls, and requiring a photo ID to cast a vote would not defend the voting system against a cyberattack.

Asked whether it might be misleading to suggest photo ID could stop hackers, Voter Integrity Project director Jay DeLancy declined to elaborate.

"The Democrats think that the Russians are cheating, and Republicans think Democrats are cheating. We just hate cheating. So we wanted to stop cheaters any which way we could," he said. "I think voter ID will solve a certain type of voter fraud."

Last year, the State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement conducted an audit of nearly 4.8 million votes cast in North Carolina in the 2016 presidential election. It found only one case of voter impersonation that would have been prevented by a photo ID requirement. The person who cast the fraudulent vote in that case was a family member.

In 2018, the US Attorney for Eastern NC announced the indictments of 19 non-citizens for voter fraud because they cast ballots they were not eligible to cast. One case so far has resulted in a guilty plea. It's unclear how many of the indicted voters would have been stopped by a photo ID requirement.

Related Topics

 Credits 

Copyright 2024 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.