This story was updated on Sept. 27, 2024, to reflect the fact that the day after the Superior Court hearing on Sept. 19, lawyers for the North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee filed an appeal with the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
A Wake County Superior Court judge Thursday denied the North Carolina Republican Party's request for a temporary restraining order aimed at blocking UNC-Chapel Hill students from using a school-issued digital photo ID for voting.
Students and employees at UNC-Chapel Hill use the school's One Card to pay for meals, obtain school supplies and for campus-building access.
Increasingly, the university is moving away from issuing its One Card in physical form and getting students to store the photo-bearing ID in digital form on their phones.
Accordingly, the university asked the North Carolina State Board of Elections to approve the mobile One Card as a form of voter photo ID.
Last month, the elections board's Democratic majority — over the objections of its two Republican members — concluded the digital ID satisfied the statutory criteria for valid photo ID.
Then, last week, the North Carolina GOP, along with the National Republican Committee, sued, claiming the elections board violated the state's voter ID law, which lists several types of cards, such as a North Carolina Driver's License, among the acceptable forms of ID.
"The law is clear," said W. Ellis Boyle, an attorney with the law firm Ward and Smith, who is representing the NC GOP.
In court on Thursday, Boyle added that the word 'card' appears repeatedly in the statutory language listing what forms of ID would be accepted for voting purposes. The word 'card,' he argued, means "a physical item."
But Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Carla Babb, defending the state elections board, argued there is nothing in the statutory language that prohibits a mobile student ID, especially one issued by UNC-Chapel Hill instead of a physical card.
Babb informed the judge that students may opt out of the digital One Card and get a physical card instead for a fee of $10. Amid the litigation, UNC-Chapel Hill issued a statement this week, informing students and employees who needed a One Card for the purposes of voting could obtain one, without chip technology, free of charge.
Babb argued that in all respects the mobile One Card satisfies the statutory criteria. And, she said, just having a One Card doesn't entitle a student to vote. The person must be properly registered in North Carolina.
Jim Phillips, an attorney representing the Democratic National Committee, which intervened in the case, said that what Republicans were really trying to do was create confusion and suppress turnout among mostly left-leaning college voters.
Phillips noted that the elections board approved the mobile One Card at a meeting on August 20. But the NC GOP lawsuit wasn't filed until Sept. 12, just over a month before the start of in-person early voting and more than a month after Carolina students were informed the mobile One Cards could be used for voting.
As for concerns raised by the GOP's attorneys that digital One Cards could be compromised and used to cast fraudulent votes, Phillips said: "The Court shouldn't encourage or countenance such fear mongering."
Judge Keith Gregory sided with the elections board and said he wasn't going to get in the way of duly registered voters presenting valid IDs to cast their ballots.
Gregory said that if an appellate court wants to overrule him, then so be it. But to him, it is clear that if a person is not registered to vote in North Carolina, then they can't vote, even with a mobile One Card.
The NC GOP and the Republican National Committee have filed an appeal with North Carolina's Court of Appeals. Early, in-person voting starts Oct. 17.
