UPDATE: The governor has signed the measure.
Compromise legislation that would make it easier to vote absentee in North Carolina this fall, and safer to vote in person, has been cleared with bipartisan support in the General Assembly.
But it faces an uncertain future on the desk of Gov. Roy Cooper, who is being pressed by fellow Democrats for a veto because of a voter identification provision added at the last hour by majority Republicans.
The measure has produced the last in a long roster of fights over election rules in the 10th largest state. Attention is heightened because North Carolina is hosting the bulk of the Republican convention this summer and is a potential presidential battleground this fall — and its part in the nationwide struggle to assure safe and open balloting during a coronavirus pandemic is being complicated by its vivid role in the South's long struggles over voting rights.
The most important provision in the bill, which won final passage Thursday, would require the state to allow voters to request their vote-by-mail ballots online this fall.
No excuse is required to vote absentee, but current rules permit applications only by mail or in person — a main reason why 4 percent of votes, or less, have been cast that way in recent elections.
The state is expecting the number could surge tenfold, to 40 percent, for November.
Another reason is that North Carolina is among just four states where mail ballots must be witnessed by two people. The compromise measure would drop the number to one for this year only — as in half a dozen states, several of which are defending lawsuits arguing that finding such witnesses is an unconstitutional burden at a time of social distancing.
Proponents say the requirements guard against fraud, and a prominent conservative group in the state lobbied hard against the entire bill as an invitation to "unlimited voter fraud," supporting President Trump's unsubstantiated position that mail voting is an invitation to easy cheating.
But the argument was rejected outright in Raleigh. The measure passed the Senate 35-12 on Wednesday, with all Republicans and about half the Democrats in favor, before a 105-14 vote for final passage Thursday in the House.
The entire dispute was about language that would permit voters to use public assistance documents as proof of identification at the polls — an idea some Democrats approve of in isolation, but not in the context of the long-running fight over the state's voter ID laws.
The version enacted two years ago has been put on hold by two different courts, which are considering suits by civil rights groups arguing the measure was written with the racist motive of suppressing the black vote — the same argument that prompted courts to strike down as unconstitutional the previous voter ID law.
The current litigation could be resolved before November, however, and if the Republican lawmakers defending the law win, voters would need to bring a photo ID to their polling places.
Some Democrats and civil rights groups, who are seeking to have the law thrown out altogether because of its "racially discriminatory intent," worry their case will be badly weakened by an alteration permitting public aid ID cards as an option. That is what they are pressing the governor to reject the measure.
Turnout is crucial to both sides in the state this fall. President Trump carried it by 4 points last time, but Democrat Joe Biden plans to spend to compete for its 15 electoral votes — hoping to replicate Barack Obama's narrow win in 2008, which was propelled by a wave of votes from urban areas. The state also has a tossup Senate contest between GOP incumbent Thom Tillis and former Democratic state Sen. Cal Cunningham.
The measure would provide $27 million in funding for local officials to help them sanitize polling places, buy protective clothing for poll workers and enhance the security of voting equipment, and it would explicitly prevent North Carolina from ever conducting elections entirely by mail.
It also would allow precincts to be staffed with poll workers who don't live in the neighborhood, as is normally required but could prove important because of a huge drop in volunteers. The average poll worker in North Carolina is 70 and the elderly are especially prone to Covid-19 infection.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.