North Carolina OKs the use of student digital IDs to vote
People walk on the campus of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on June 29, 2023, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Eros Hoagland via Getty Images
The narrow approval is just for students and faculty on the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus. It comes as mobile IDs and driver’s licenses grow in popularity, but also as cyberattacks continue to rise.
Students at the University of North Carolina can now use their digital student identification card to vote. But the plan almost didn’t happen, as it divided the State Board of Elections and troubled observers who worried about the privacy risks ahead of November’s election.
The board voted 3-2 late last month to allow the more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 13,000 faculty and employees on the university’s Chapel Hill campus to use their Mobile UNC One Card as an acceptable form of voter identification.
The mobile ID, which can be added to users’ Apple Wallets, but not yet to Android’s Google Wallet, allows cardholders to use contactless technology to access buildings and events, pay for food and vending, and view offerings like their meal plans and other account balances. Users must have an approved photo on file to authenticate their identities, and when they get a mobile card, it invalidates their physical card.
But the university’s application to the State Board of Elections to have the Mobile UNC One Card added to the list of acceptable forms of voter ID stirred some controversy among board members, who argued that allowing a mobile ID far exceeds the board’s legal authority.
The vote highlights the tension between people’s growing desire to use mobile identification and the need for governments to ensure mobile IDs are secure. And it is especially prescient as the state is currently considering adopting mobile driver’s licenses. So far, about a dozen states have authorized them, but security issues remain paramount given how vulnerable mobile devices are to cyberattacks.
Board Member Stacy Eggers IV was among the proposal’s most strident opponents. During last month’s meeting, he argued there are major differences between mobile and physical identifications that prevent mobile IDs being used to vote.
“What we're being asked to approve here is an identification on a mobile app, and a mobile app is not an identification card,” he said. “It appears to be a form of communication and form of information that the UNC system has put together.”
Eggers also argued that the board lacked the authority under state law to approve the use of a mobile identification card in lieu of a physical card. He added that poll workers being required to take possession of someone’s phone and potentially adjust the brightness to allow the ID card to be read could be a “bridge too far” in terms of what is required of them on Election Day.
“This is a different process we're doing here than simply giving my friends my football tickets when I download them from the website,” Eggers said.
Kevin Lewis, a fellow board member, said the statute is clear about what constitutes an ID card, and that going outside the perimeters defined in the law constitutes “activist rulemaking or lawmaking.” He urged his colleagues to not “get creative and go above and beyond what the General Assembly has allowed.” Both Lewis and Eggers voted against approval.
Proponents, however, noted that UNC has conformed with the state’s requirements for an ID to be usable to vote. Board Member Karen Bell noted that the inclusion of an expiration date, which had not existed before, made UNC’s digital ID stand out from others. And her colleague Siobhan O’Duffy Millen said that UNC has “jumped through a lot of hoops” to get this digital ID card right.
Board Chair Alan Hirsch argued that there is enough flexibility in state law to allow for digital ID cards to be used at polling places. He added that the move to everything being mobile and digital cannot be stopped. “I think that’s the way of the world,” he said.
Local elected officials have pledged to act to stop implementation. After the board’s vote, the North Carolina Republican Party accused members on X, formerly Twitter, of “playing more games with election integrity” and violating voter ID requirements. “Rest assured—we won't stand for it,” the party said.
More troubling for cybersecurity experts is how vulnerable mobile devices and government agencies still are to cyberattacks. Mobile security company Lookout found earlier this year that devices are more vulnerable to phishing and other malicious attacks as mobiles typically do not have robust firewall protections like laptops or desktop computers. Attacks on mobile devices have increased 85% year over year, Lookout found.
“I would love to be able to have a capability that has all of my necessary information on a singular device,” said Jim Coyle, Lookout's U.S. public sector chief technology officer. “There's a lot of benefit. However, the catch here is we need to stop doing the bare minimum when it comes to security.”
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