Buncombe elections board reviews seven photo‑ID exception forms, votes to notify voters for hearings and accepts several cures

The Buncombe County Board of Elections spent most of its Nov. 12 meeting reviewing seven photo‑ID exception (reasonable‑impediment) forms submitted by voters who cast provisional ballots.

Staff told the board they had forwarded a template notice and a state board memorandum advising that, absent evidence the form is false, photo‑ID exception forms generally should be approved. Board members discussed the controlling legal standard from the state memo and administrative code: the county board’s role is to determine the truth or falsity of the specific impediment a voter wrote on the form, not to judge whether that reason is subjectively reasonable.

Member Aceto moved that the board “propose to reject” the exception form submitted in Ronnie Carol Burris’ envelope, saying the reason on the form — an expired ID “years ago” — “bears no relationship to [the voter’s]…