RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican Party sued North Carolina’s elections board on Thursday to block students and employees at the state’s flagship public university from offering a digital identification as a way to comply with a relatively new photo voter ID law.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina filed the lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court three weeks after the Democratic majority on the State Board of Elections approved the “Mobile UNC One Card” generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a qualifying ID.
The law says qualifying IDs must meet several photo and security requirements to be approved by the board. The UNC-Chapel Hill digital ID, which is voluntary for students and staff and available on Apple phones, marks the qualification of the first such ID posted from someone’s smartphone.
The Republican groups said state law clearly requires any of several categories of permitted identifications — from driver’s licenses to U.S. passports and university and military IDs — to be only in a physical form.