Supporters of a controversial Republican-backed voter ID bill in North Carolina are on message. Maybe too much so.
At a public hearing Wednesday, several backers of the measure used the same arguments—in some cases, word-for-word—to bolster their case. As a reporter for local news channel WTVD put it: “These were more than talking points for supporters of the voter ID law. They were scripts.”
Sure enough, a conservative group, Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina, had handed out scripts to supporters as they came in, WTVD reported.
Watch:
Clumsy tactics aside, the voter ID bill is a solution in search of a problem. Keesha Gaskins of the Brennan Center testified last month that in the last 12 years, there’s been only one case of voter impersonation in North Carolina, among 21 million votes cast. The bill—which is supported by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican—is part of a wave of new voting restrictions being pushed by Tarheel State Republicans, all of which would make it harder for Democratic-leaning groups to vote. Other bills introduced last week would reduce early voting, scrap Sunday voting, and impose a tax penalty on parents whose kids vote at their college address, rather than their parents’ address, making voting far less convenient for students.
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