Here’s an important announcement if you’re connected to a NC high school – as a student, parent, teacher, staff member or administrator. County boards of elections are gearing up to fulfill a new requirement that they conduct voter registration drives in all high schools during September, which is Citizens Awareness Month in North Carolina. Some counties do a good job, but most could use a hand from community volunteers and insiders at the high school. Now’s the time to offer to help! The registration drive provides a unique chance to educate young people about the election process and to foster a life-long commitment to civic engagement. Citizens who are 16 or 17 can preregister by checking an extra box on the registration application; the completed form will be held by the elections board until the applicant reaches the age to be fully registered. Since preregistration began in January 2010, more than 60,000 16 and 17 year olds have signed up. Last week, the State Board of Elections sent a 13-page booklet to all county boards that includes a list of ideas for registration and preregistration drives (page 5). Local planning is just getting underway; use the contact info in the booklet (page 8 ) to call your local elections board and offer to help with activities for September (or call Democracy North Carolina at 919-286-6000).

Join Democracy North Carolina and others on Wednesday, July 13, in Raleigh at the Respect Our Vote Rally. Good speakers, good friends, good cause, and a good time to say No to partisan attacks on your voting rights. In addition to scheming to override Gov. Perdue’s veto of the photo ID bill, conservative lawmakers will use other legislation to twist the election process in their favor, from cutting down Early Voting to carving up political district lines. Their lack of respect for voters is a sharp contrast to the historic vote the NC General Assembly took in July forty years ago that awarded the franchise across the nation to 18 year olds.  Reversing the slogan of that era, “If you’re old enough to vote, you’re old enough to fight.” See you soon.

To big applause, Speaker Thom Tillis told NC Republicans at Saturday’s convention that this week he will push through legislation requiring voters to show a government photo ID each time they vote. The bill has been stalled for months as more evidence piled up about it being a waste of tax money and a partisan tool to make voting harder for certain groups of citizens. Republican leaders have tried to negotiate a modified ID requirement with various factions in the General Assembly, but an agreement could not be reached. So be prepared to see the GOP satisfy their Tea Party/base supporters by ramming through the hard-line photo ID bill this week. Then it will up to Gov. Bev Perdue to veto the bill – as well as the bill now in the state Senate to slice a week off the Early Voting period. The New York Times notes that both bills are part of “a well-coordinated effort by Republican state legislators across the country to disenfranchise voters who tend to support Democrats, particularly minorities and young people.”

A trio of state Senators introduced a bill this week that hits each of the goals of the Art Pope-Civitas-Americans for Prosperity agenda for voting: Senate Bill 657 would kill pre-registration for teenagers, repeal Same Day Registration, cut down the days and hours for in-person Early Voting, cripple out-of-precinct provisional voting, but allow organized campaigns for mail-in absentee voting, which is the one area where Republicans consistently out-perform Democrats. Two of the Republican bill sponsors (Sen. Ralph Hise and Sen. Jim Davis) gained their election largely because they ranked Number 1 and Number 2 in receiving the most support from the Civitas-AFP-Pope-funded outside electioneering groups and Pope family contributions; they got an astonishing $580,000 worth of support. Rock the Vote provides a useful summary of this bill, calling it “A New Low in North Carolina” that will particularly harm young voters. Meanwhile, a new report analyzing first-time voters in 2008 shows that nearly two thirds were under age 30 and 54% were white and had some college education – but the growth in their numbers over 2004 came from first-time voters who were non-white and never attended college. The liberal leanings of first-time voters, particularly in 2008, may be one reason the Pope-Civitas conservatives in the NC General Assembly are so hostile to youth civic engagement.

Republicans in Raleigh are reviving their push for a hard-line bill that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID each time they vote. There was a brief moment where Republicans seemed to recognize that accepting a broader range of ID documents would be fine, but the zealots’ perspective has apparently prevailed: North Carolina should impose harsh burdens to purge voters who scare conservatives, including College Students and especially Black College Students. Fortunately, the students continue to organize meetings and write columns opposing the photo ID legislation. On the zealot’s side, the Pope Civitas Institute keeps promoting the popularity of election integrity (duh!) as a reason to impose their exclusionary agenda on everyone else. These reactionary fears are sad and pathetic, but their consequences are both far-reaching and tragic when they become the basis for government policy.

The proposal to make NC voters show a government-issued photo ID is gaining widespread condemnation by editorial boards across the state. Read these recent editorials from the major newspapers in Asheville, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Wilmington. Smaller papers in places like Ahoskie and little Washington are also covering the issue. The head of the NC Republican Party is asking his members to lobby for the bill (H-351) in a new video, but reporter Mark Binker took the time to debunk the video’s false claims about voter fraud, citing research from Democracy NC. Debate on the bill continues this week (Wednesday, 1 pm, Room 643 of the Legislative Office Building). Students at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte held a press conference yesterday to voice their concern that students at private colleges are especially harmed because only student IDs from public colleges are acceptable. The bill sponsors say they may adjust the bill so it does not discriminate against private colleges. Meanwhile, anti-immigration zealots want even tougher restrictions that would eliminate virtually all student IDs. A new version of H-351 that may or may not address these concerns is expected at Wednesday’s meeting.

Is there a national effort to make voting harder for young people?  The head of Generation18 provides an overview of the issue and the anti-voter efforts across the country, as well as a plea for deeper civics education in our schools. Closer to home, Charlotte WBTV has a cover story on how the issue is playing out in North Carolina, with the catchy title, “The War on Voting?”