Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be allowed to use their digital identification cards as a form of voter ID, a Wake County judge ruled Thursday, according to NC Newsline.
The Republican National Committee had sued the state Board of Elections for approving the university’s mobileOne cards as an acceptable proof of identity, saying that state law required the use of physical cards.
But Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory disagreed.
“Where does it say they can’t use these cards? It doesn’t,” Gregory said.
Most people who vote use their driver’s license as ID, but other forms of identification are allowed. UNC’s mobile card was the first digital ID to be approved by the board, which voted 3 to 2 vote along party lines.
Democrats defended their use, arguing that Republican lawsuits have “targeted groups they don’t want to go to the polls.”
The lawsuit was intended to confuse voters and “raise the specter that hordes of non-citizens are going to cast ballots in North Carolina this year,” Jim Phillips, a lawyer representing the Democratic National Committee, told Newsline.
It remains unclear whether the RNC will appeal. But time to do so is running out; North Carolina counties began mailing absentee ballots Friday, and in-person early voting begins Oct. 17.
