Did Reform Discourage Voters? Check Out Vote Tracker to See | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's note: This post, by Susan Myrick, was originally published in the Elections & Voting section of Civitas's online edition.

    Vote Tracker has been updated with Election Day votes. Take a look at the updated ncvotetracker.com to see who turned out for May's Primary Election.

    Using ncvotetracker.com you will be able to break down the vote by the method of voting utilized – absentee (one-stop and by-mail), Election Day, provisional, transfer and curbside voting. You will also be able to look at voting within districts, including congressional, legislative, county and even precincts.

    Beginning with this election, the recently implemented election reform law (Voter Information Verification Act, or VIVA) shortened the one-stop, in-person, early voting period from 17 to 10 days and eliminated same-day registration (SDR) altogether.

    Though critics had worried the changes would discourage voters, the opposite happened: Turnout, rather than slumping, increased by 147,700 voters, more than a 5 percent increase over 2010. Disproving another claim from the Left, African-American turnout also increased during early voting and overall – by nearly 2 percentage points.

    Even while the early voting period had been shortened by seven days in 2014, 91,630 more people voted early at one-stop sites this year than they did in 2010. Moreover, these numbers make it evident that SDR was not missed by the voters. SDR allowed voters to wait until the one-stop voting period to register to vote and vote at the same time. These voters were subsequently allowed to bypass the address verification process that all other voters were required to undergo before they were allowed to vote. It undermined the integrity of the voting process, and voters have just shown they didn't really need it.

    No doubt, the changes made to North Carolina's election law will go largely unnoticed by the electorate, for many of the old changes were unneeded, and most of the new reforms are common-sense steps that will have little impact on voters. Those who do notice the changes will applaud the steps taken to introduce integrity into the voting process in North Carolina.

    See for yourself at ncvotertracker.com.