Politics

North Carolina voters have seen it all. There’s still cause for optimism.

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

North Carolina voters have seen it all. There’s still cause for optimism.

This article is the third in a five-part series called “Protecting the Election.” As former President Donald Trump and many of his allies refuse to concede his defeat in the 2020 election, this BLN Daily series brings election law and policy experts to explore the many threats to certifying election results at both the state and national levels.

The 2024 election will be a wholly different experience for North Carolina’s more than 5.5 million voters.

North Carolina voters — including college students and voters living in storm-affected areas — are voting early in record numbers.

After years of attacks on voting rights by the gerrymandered GOP supermajority in the state Legislature, North Carolina voters will be required to show a photo ID at the polls for the first time in a presidential election. Coupled with new restrictions on vote-by-mail and lawsuits targeting student voters, Republicans are doing everything they can to suppress the vote among core Democratic voting blocs. These human-made barriers to voting have only been exacerbated in western North Carolina by Hurricane Helene and its aftermath.

Despite these new challenges, North Carolina voters — including college students and voters living in storm-affected areas — are voting early in record numbers, and dedicated election officials across the state are doing everything they can to ensure that voting is safe and convenient.

While most North Carolina voters possess photo ID that meets the state’s new voter ID requirements, there has been some confusion among many voters about this new law. Most importantly for voters, if a voter has been unable to obtain an acceptable photo ID because of lack of transportation, lack of knowledge about the ID requirement or any other reasonable impediment, they may still vote provisionally and complete an ID exception form. While questions linger about how county boards of elections will process exception forms, voters without IDs can still confidently vote even if they lack appropriate photo identification.

A flashpoint in North Carolina’s ongoing voter ID fight is the acceptability of photo IDs from North Carolina’s colleges and universities. After rounds of lawsuits, statutory revisions and rulemaking, students and employees at North Carolina’s colleges and universities are now permitted to use their school IDs for voting, but only if the school’s ID has been pre-approved by the state board of elections. While the board of elections has approved the use of over 130 different school IDs for 2024, these approvals have not been without controversy.

In August, the board of elections approved the use of UNC-Chapel Hill’s digital student ID, the primary form of campus ID for students, which is accessible using a mobile device. The Republican National Committee and state GOP soon filed suit, arguing that, under North Carolina’s voter ID law, only physical ID cards are permitted. While a trial court judge initially ruled that the digital IDs met voter ID requirements, the state court of appeals overruled the trial courts’ decision. The higher courts’ ruling has led to a scramble by UNC-Chapel Hill administrators and student advocacy groups to ensure that students who do not have another acceptable form of voter ID are able to obtain a physical student ID card free of charge.

In the westernmost third of North Carolina, the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene has created significant hurdles to voting.

In addition to implementing voter ID, North Carolina’s Republican Legislature has also further restricted vote-by-mail options. In keeping with the new voter ID requirement, vote-by-mail voters must now submit a photocopy of their ID or a form claiming a voter ID exception along with their ballot. These additional steps make it incrementally more difficult for voters to successfully submit their mail ballot.

Another wrinkle is that previously a voter could mail a ballot by Election Day and have it counted as long as it was received at the county board elections within three days after Election Day. Now, however, mail ballots must be received by the close of voting on Election Day in order to be counted.

In the westernmost third of North Carolina, the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene has created significant hurdles to voting. Helene’s winds and floods destroyed hundreds of homes, displaced thousands and left tens of thousands more still without electricity or running water.

However, in the storm’s wake, the Republican-led Legislature, Democratic majority state board of elections and election administrators across the affected region have come together to provide voters and local election administrators the resources and flexibility to conveniently cast their ballots this fall. Because of this rapid response, 76 of the originally planned 80 early voting sites across the region opened at the start of early voting last week. Additionally, voters in the affected counties have been given the option to return vote-by-mail ballots at any board of elections office or early voting site in the state. Under an existing carveout in North Carolina’s voter ID law, voters who are unable to provide a photo ID because of the natural disaster are excused from presenting photo ID provided they complete the simple exception form.

Despite yearslong Republican voter suppression efforts and the worst natural disaster in state history, there is also cause for optimism. Early voting totals are far outpacing 2020 numbers — and the vast majority of voters across the state are voting without issue.

In the aftermath of Helene, Republicans and Democrats have come together to make sure voters across the state are able to safely and conveniently cast a ballot. Perhaps most importantly, the professional election administrators in North Carolina’s state and county board of elections are uniformly committed to ensuring that every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot and that every ballot is counted in a fair and secure process.

Seth Morris

Seth Morris is an attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina with experience in voting rights and election law.

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Poll: Voter cynicism remains a potent threat to incumbents across the globe

Published

2 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters punished ruling parties across the globe in 2024. They are doing it again now.

The same voters who rejected their rulers without mercy on both sides of the Atlantic — throwing out Britain’s Conservatives after 14 years in power and humbling Democrats in the United States — are now poised to deliver resounding defeats to the very leaders they elected two years ago.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces the prospect of being ousted later this year if a key rival in Manchester can pull off a win in a special parliamentary vote next week. President Donald Trump, while locked into power until January 2029, appears to be barreling toward lame duck status with Democrats growing increasingly bullish about their midterm prospects in November — particularly in winning back the U.S. House.

And The POLITICO Poll suggests Western voters’ desire for political bloodletting hasn’t abated.

Building on previous work by Public First, the London-based firm that conducts the survey, a new analysis of May Blue Light News Poll results show large shares of voters in both the United Kingdom and United States express deep cynicism about politics and a constant desire for radical change — suggesting the forces behind the backlash may still be potent, and that power switching hands this year may not be enough to quell them.

In America, 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump. In the U.K., voters are similarly angry at politicians, who they blame for being unable to address a variety of issues, including cost of living and immigration. New results from The POLITICO Poll, conducted over the weekend, show a 56 percent majority of U.K. adults said the bigger problem with politics in the U.K. is the politicians who do not do the right thing, while just 15 percent blame the system itself.

That deep dissatisfaction has metastasized into a perpetual anti-incumbent frustration in recent years. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party had its worst result in a national election in several decades, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau stepped down amid growing voter frustration. Just since February of last year, the rulers of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have all been ejected at key elections.

Now the U.K. is watching the vote in Makerfield next week, which may determine whether Starmer gets to keep his job amid public outrage at his handling of fallout from the Epstein scandal, and voter concerns about immigration, the economy and law enforcement. If Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, succeeds in being elected back to Parliament next week, it will almost certainly trigger a series of events that could end in the removal of the deeply unpopular Starmer as the head of the Labour Party — and prime minister.

The result could ripple across the Atlantic as Republicans face their own political headwinds ahead of the crucial November midterms in the United States.

“What we’re seeing is a cross-Atlantic disconnect between voters and electeds,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist in Washington and senior partner at Penta, a consulting firm.

“Voters in the U.S. are squarely focused on at-home domestic priorities and kitchen-table concerns like food, health care and housing costs. So when the headlines are focused on foreign conflict and disruptions to global markets, those will reinforce the disconnect.”

Deep cynicism in the UK spells trouble for Starmer

In 2024, the rejection of incumbents came amid a growing frustration over the cost of living and broader economic anxieties. Whether that backlash was a temporary response — or reflects an engrained dissatisfaction with political institutions — is a question now confronting leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, as affordability concerns continue to spiral.

In the U.K., the analysis from Public First finds a deep sense of political disillusionment. The firm developed a series of measures to understand that feeling of “anti-politics”, and cynicism stood out: Voters who believe politicians are self-serving, that political talk rarely leads to real action and that the public has little influence over what politicians actually do.

Nearly half of British adults — 45 percent — scored high on Public First’s cynicism scale; so did 37 percent of U.S. adults.

The findings underscore the challenge facing Starmer. New results from The Blue Light News Poll conducted last weekend show nearly two-thirds of U.K. adults — 64 percent — said they don’t think Starmer will remain as prime minister until the next general election.

The center-left U.K. leader has suffered the most dramatic plunge in popularity of any prime minister in British history. Since winning a landslide victory just under two years ago, Starmer has seen his Labour Party fall to historic lows in opinion polls, while the nationalist right-wing Reform U.K. of Nigel Farage has stormed into the lead in polls and local elections, mirroring the success of insurgent populists across Europe.

Three-quarters of highly cynical voters in the U.K. hold an unfavorable view of Starmer, the Public First analysis of a May Blue Light News Poll found — far higher than the national average.

The Makerfield by-election on June 18 will determine whether Burnham, Starmer’s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour’s representative, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister. Burnham’s main rival in the by-election is the Reform U.K. candidate — whose victory would likely end Burnham’s leadership ambitions, plunge Labour into unprecedented turmoil and send the national government into fresh disarray.

But Makerfield looks likely to be terrible for Starmer, whoever wins. Either it will be Burnham, who will then go to London to try to oust the prime minister, or it will be Reform U.K. — fuelling claims that Starmer has toxified his own party beyond repair.

Why Trump should be watching closely

It’s a cautionary tale for Trump, the Public First research found.

As Starmer confronts dropping favorability ratings, Trump’s own numbers have also plummeted — and the segment of cynical Americans may be as dangerous for the president as their British cohort is for the prime minister.

Among this group, 57 percent hold an unfavorable view of Trump and his agenda, compared with 48 percent nationally.

That could pose a challenge for Republicans heading into the midterms. Elections in the U.S. historically punish the party in power, and many Republicans are bracing for an even more difficult than anticipated midterm landscape, fueled by the mounting economic concerns and an unpopular war in Iran.

“The biggest mood shift is taking place among voters in the big middle,” Madden said. “These are the same voters that migrated toward Trump and the GOP in 2024 because they were nostalgic for a Trump economy and they rallied around a message focused on tackling inflation.”.

Sizable shares of cynical Americans hold negative views about the economy. Among these respondents, 52 percent say their financial situation has worsened since Trump took office in 2025 and 59 percent say Trump has spent too much time focused on international affairs rather than domestic issues.

Trump, who rode to power in 2024 in large part over voter dissatisfaction to the economy during the Biden administration, is now confronting a similar challenge. Recent polling finds voters increasingly blaming Trump for their financial pressures, even as he continues to cast blame to his predecessor.

Part of the problem for incumbents is that many people blame politicians — not the broader system — for their dissatisfaction, underscoring the challenge for the leaders as voters begin to turn on them. Nearly half of British adults, 45 percent, say the country keeps changing prime ministers “because none of them are any good,” while just 26 percent blame “big problems that not even a good PM could solve.”

As soon as leaders are elected by a frustrated, dissatisfied electorate to turn things around — as both Starmer and Trump were in 2024 — the clock begins to tick.

“Elections are so often now about which candidate can channel the frustrations of a cynical electorate,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, Blue Light News’s polling partner.

“Republicans and Democratic candidates alike should pay attention to what is happening in the U.K.,” he said. “It is far harder to win over an antipolitical voter base when you represent the ‘politics,’ and given how fast Britain is working through Prime Ministers cynical voters seem to be getting more common and less patient.”