North Carolina elections board OKs university ID on phones for voter access this fall

The North Carolina elections board on Tuesday approved the first digital identification that can be used to meet state voter ID requirements, signing off on mobile credentials offered to students and employees at the state's flagship public university.

The Democratic-controlled State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines to sign off on the credentials. It declared that showing the Mobile UNC One Card generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was a way registered voters could meet the state's relatively new photo voter ID mandate.

The voter ID law sets several categories of qualifying identifications, such as North Carolina driver's licenses, U.S. passports and some free ID cards. The state board also accepts applications from public and private universities, local government entities and others that want their IDs to qualify. While the board has OK'd over 130 traditional student and employee IDs as qualifying for voting purposes in 2024, Tuesday’s vote marks the qualification of the first such ID posted from someone’s smartphone.

The state Republican Party later criticized the approval and suggested a possible legal challenge ahead. Minor adjustments to ballot access could affect outcomes in several anticipated close statewide races this fall in North Carolina.

State law doesn't specifically define an “identification card." A board attorney told board members it was her reading that there's nothing in the law that specifically limits approval to printed cards.

UNC-Chapel Hill students and employees who use Apple phones can obtain a Mobile One Card or continue to use a physical One Card, which already had been approved as a qualifying card. One Cards can also be used to access buildings and parking and pay for food.

Board Chair Alan Hirsch, a Democrat, said trends in technology led him to approve a mobile ID, pointing out that airline passengers now show boarding passes from their smartphones.

“There’s certainly enough flexibility within the statute for us to approve a digital card as a card. I think that’s the way of the world,” Hirsch told colleagues during the online meeting. “I think everyone of a certain younger generation than we are lives by that.”

Republican members argued the the language of the voter ID law requires an actual card unless or until the General Assembly changes it. Approving a mobile ID when state board officials still say showing a photo of a hard ID card from a mobile device can't be accepted during in-person voting is “confusing and inconsistent,” GOP board member Four Eggers said.

“This is a different process we’re doing here than simply giving my friend my football tickets when I download them from the website,” Eggers said.

The law says qualifying IDs must meet several photo and security requirements to be approved by the board. State Board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said other schools have unsuccessfully attempted to get similar mobile ID cards approved. UNC-Chapel Hill met all the standards, she said, particularly by having an expiration date on the ID credential.

In a post on X, the state Republican Party wrote the elections board “is playing more games with Election Integrity” by permitting a digital ID.

“Rest assured -- we won’t stand for it," the state GOP wrote.

The current voter ID law was initially approved in late 2018 but didn't get carried out until the 2023 municipal elections as legal challenges continued. A trial in a federal lawsuit challenging the photo ID law was completed in May, but a judge has yet to issue a decision.

Someone who can’t show a qualifying ID casts a provisional ballot and either fills out an exception form or provides an ID before ballot counts are complete.

People casting traditional absentee ballots also are asked to put a copy of an ID into their envelope. UNC-Chapel Hill voters can now insert a photocopy of the One Card displayed on their phones after Tuesday's approval, board spokesperson Pat Gannon said.

The board on Tuesday also formally placed Cornel West on the state’s presidential ballots after a federal judge overturned the board's recent decision not to recognize a political group that appeared to collect enough signatures to become an official state party.

The board had voted along party lines last month not to certify the Justice for All Party of North Carolina, with some board members questioning the methods by which signatures were obtained.

But U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle wrote on Aug. 12 that the board went too far in throwing out the party petition entirely. The board unanimously agreed Tuesday to comply with Boyle’s order to declare Justice for All an official party and to accept West, a progressive activist and professor, as a ballot candidate.