Voters will be deciding on six amendments to the state constitution this November, and we wanted to know how relevant these amendments were to our Reach NC Voices members. In our July 12 Reach Roundup newsletter, we posed our Question of the Week: The North Carolina General Assembly just approved six constitutional amendments to appear on the 2018 ballot. Which of the six is most important to you?​

Response options included: protecting the right to hunt and fish, stronger protections for crime victims, a bipartisan Board of Ethics & Elections, merit-based judge nomination, capping the income tax at 7 percent, and the voter ID requirement. Here’s the breakdown of how participants answered our question and some of the comments we received:

“There should be a choice that says that you are not in favor of ANY of these amendments. All are written in a way to confuse voters and increase power for current NCGA.”
-Christy from Durham, NC

“The amendment to require voter ID is important to me because it is a form of voter suppression that has no place in our democratic society. All of the amendments are targeted to bring out white, conservative support while discouraging diverse, progressive voices. I hope people will educate themselves on what these measures really do and see them for what they are — political ploys and bad ideas. 
-LeAnna from Asheville, NC

“We should enforce legal voting. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what or who is on the ballot! Photo ID is required to purchase alcohol, tobacco, applying for Medicare/Medicaid, at doctor office, bank, etc. Why not voting booths where voting is allowed for CITIZENS only! How does citizenship get verified? Green card residents can have photo ID but not eligible to vote. So, photo ID is a minimum but not even enough. The cost is no longer an excuse because free NC ID or voter ID is free to those who couldn’t afford them as stated at NC DMV website!”
-Linh from Cary, NC

“Rejecting the income tax cap is important for public education (K12, community college and universities) in NC. The income tax is the largest and most stable revenue source for education and in tough economic times may need to be increased to ensure we don’t cut education too deeply and damage individual economic opportunity and state prosperity.”
-J.B. from Raleigh, NC

“Next most important would be protecting the right to hunt and fish because it involves the right to bear arms, which I strongly support.”
-Lynn from Garner, NC

“The proposed voter ID law is not about voter fraud — statistically that is not an issue. It’s about disenfranchisement of a specific demographic and it’s not only unethical, it’s illegal. This is just an end run around the courts which have struck down other efforts to strip minorities of their right to vote.”
-Jennifer from Charlotte, NC

 

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Yasmin Bendaas

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Yasmin Bendaas is a Science writer.  A North Carolina native, she received her master’s degree in Science & Medical Journalism at UNC Chapel Hill, where she was a Park Fellow. She received her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 2013 from Wake Forest University, where she double-minored in journalism and Middle East and South Asia studies. As an undergraduate student, Bendaas gained insight into public health when she interned at the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, a statewide grantmaker focused on rural health, including access to primary care, diabetes, community-centered prevention, and mental health and substance abuse. 

As a journalist, Bendaas has been funded twice by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for fieldwork in Algeria — first to cover a disappearing indigenous tattoo tradition, and again to look at how climate change affects rural sheepherding practices.