NC Republicans want to know about 'Kirk Perkins'

Linda Daves, chairwoman of the NC Republican Party, jumps into the "Kirk Perkins" controversy with this statement:

"We must put in place proper safeguards to ensure that this situation never again repeats itself. Common sense regulations requiring proper identification for candidates who wish to be on the ballot and for voters wishing to to cast a ballot should be the law of the land. Identificatiion requirements have not been shown to disenfranchise voters, but they do restore confidence that our electoral processes are functioning correctly. The General Assembly should take this issue up immediately."

Requiring voters to produce photo ID at the polling places has long been a goal of North Carolina Republicans, among them NC Rep. John Blust of Guilford County. The possibility that Perkins might not even be a real person — after the candidate sought and won a seat on the soil and water board — has only added ammunition to their cause.

What Daves leaves out is that there are already safeguards in place to prevent unqualified voters from casting ballots, and safeguards to prevent voters from casting more than one ballot — just not safeguards to prevent fraudulent people from running for office. In Perkins' case, Guilford County Deputy Election Director Charlie Collicutt said, a mismatch between Perkins' name and Social Security card would have prompted a poll worker to ask for photo ID.

"He would not have been able to vote without showing us his ID," Collicutt told me. "There's a lot of safeguards in the whole voting process, but I'm nost sure the statute anticipated this kind of fraud in the filing process. But maybe it will prompt us to change some procedures."

Type rest of the post here