'Easier for students:' UNC mobile One Card approved as valid voter ID

One year after the UNC-Chapel Hill mobile One Card launched on Apple Wallet, the digital card became a valid form of Voter ID in North Carolina. 

The One Card achieved multiple capabilities, providing students with access to campus buildings and campus purchases, now serving as an acceptable voter ID.

Assistant provost and University Registrar Lauren DiGrazia submitted the student identification approval request form to the N.C. State Board of Elections on June 12, 2024. 

On Aug. 13, almost two months later, the NCBSE added 12 new student and employee cards to their list of approximately 120 approved voter ID cards, but not UNC's mobile One Card. An NCSBE press release from Aug. 13 said the board would continue to consider it, but had yet to approve it. 

During a board meeting on Aug. 20, in a narrow 3-2 vote along party lines, the NCSBE approved the UNC mobile One Card as a valid form of voter ID.

The vote approved mobile One Cards for Apple Wallets, but not the Android version or the unlaunched Google Wallet versions because they are not fully developed, said Melinda Bakken, director of campus card services and person ID at UNC in a statement to The Daily Tar Heel 

North Carolina currently requires voters to produce valid photo identification in order to cast their ballot, with N.C. General Statute 163-166.16 listing a number of ID forms that are acceptable. The law includes student ID card issued by a constituent institution of UNC, a community college, or eligible private postsecondary institution.

Stacy “Four” Eggers IV is a Republican board member of the NCSBE, serving since 2018. He spoke about statutes 163-166.17 and 163-166.18 at the Aug. 20 meeting, saying that the legislation writes specifically about an ID card being used, not a mobile app.

“This is a different process here than simply giving my friends my football tickets when I download them from the website," Eggers said. "My reading of the statute is that we simply don't have the authority to do a mobile app in lieu of an identification card.”

Karen Bell, the NCSBE executive director since 2019, said in the meeting that there have been requests by other universities in the state who use digital IDs for students. Bell said that they were unable to put the requests before the board because they lacked some of the criteria within the ID approval process, specifying issues with expiration dates not being displayed.

"UNC-Chapel Hill worked through this and in the IDs that they issued digitally, this is not merely a copy or a photocopy, these are issued IDs with expiration dates displayed in the digital ID that is being presented,” Bell said.

On campus, community members had a variety of reactions to the One Card approval. Many were positive, like the President of UNC Young Democrats Sloan Duvall, who said that voting shouldn't be hard for young people. 

"When to vote, where to vote, how to vote, what to bring with you; this can all be overwhelming information for young people... so a decision like this, that makes the voting process a little bit easier for students... is great," Duvall said. 

Political science professor Marc Hetherington said that student engagement in political science classes is different from when he started teaching 25 years ago.

"Students just weren't into it," Hetherington said. "It was hard to get students to sign up for political science classes, and man, I mean students care so much now and have such stronger feelings."

Transfer student and business administration major Claire Crowley said she thinks students are probably one of the most essential voting demographics.

"We are the next generation of America," Crowley said. "We are the next generation of leaders."

The deadline to register to vote in North Carolina is Oct. 11 at 5 p.m., with in-person early voting beginning on Oct. 17. Both the physical and mobile UNC One Card can be used as voter identification anywhere in the state.

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