The 2016 primary election is the first in North Carolina where you’ll be required to show a valid ID in order to vote. (You can vote without one if there’s a “reasonable impediment” preventing you from obtaining one, but you’ll have to go through some red tape if that’s the case.)

Legislators say the voter-ID provision is designed to prevent voter fraud, and there’s something to be said for having safeguards in place. But is the cure worse than the disease? There have only been a handful of cases in North Carolina where an individual has tried passing themselves off as somebody else in order to vote – only two cases this century, in fact, out of about 35 million votes cast.

And the voter ID provision will make it demonstrably more difficult for many North Carolinians to vote. How many? Perhaps as many as half a million, a disproportionate number of which are black, female, and either young or elderly. Evidence is still unclear on the specific effect of voter ID laws on turnout, but there’s growing evidence that it does have a negative effect. (This in turn tends to benefit Republican candidates, and voter ID opponents argue that that’s the whole purpose of the law in the first place.)

More information on voter ID and turnout here

….and a lot more here.

So what should North Carolina do, when it comes to voting and voting restrictions? Orange County conservative Ashley DeSena and WCHL’s Aaron Keck (a progressive) discussed the issue on the air this week. (Both are skeptical of voter ID. Keck likes Oregon’s law that automatically registers you to vote when you turn 18, without your having to do anything; DeSena goes further, wondering why ‘registration’ is even necessary in the first place.)

Listen to their conversation.