During last night’s North Carolina Senate District 9 Forum at the WHQR Gallery, panelist Jon Evans of WECT asked candidates if they would resurrect the voter ID bill vetoed last year by Governor Bev Perdue. WHQR’s Sara Wood reports incumbent Republican Thom Goolsby and Democratic candidate Deb Butler passionately disagreed while toeing the party lines.
“So ironic to me, Jon that the day the governor vetoed that bill, she had a party at the governor’s mansion that night. And do you know what you had to have to get into the governor’s mansion, to her party the day she vetoed the bill? A photo ID. How amazing.”
Senator Goolsby quoted a recent poll claiming 75 percent of all Americans, despite race or economic background would support a voter ID requirement. He says the issue is no laughing matter.
“Now, my opponent will say what’s the big deal, it doesn’t really matter? Well you know, most people who get on a plane, Ms. Butler, aren’t terrorists. But we actually want to make sure that the people who get on the plane are law-abiding citizens who aren’t carrying weapons or bombs.”
“No Thom, but what is funny is you talk about wasteful spending, and you want to implement a program that costs millions of dollars that we do not have. You have to spend money to have voter ID checked.”
Butler calls voter fraud a fictional buzzword, designed to disenfranchise voters.
“One case of our 4.5 million voters, it is statistically insignificant and it’s designed to inflame people, and that’s all it is. When you can show me some statistics that warrant the dollars spent, we’ll talk about it. But until that time, it’s a fiction and it’s a ruse, and you know that.”
Voter ID is a contentious topic this election year, as republicans push for its implementation in battleground states. Democrats say the laws would prevent minority and low-income voters from going to the polls.