If you’ve glanced at a sample ballot for November 3rd and done a double take at the fine print below the candidates, you’re not imagining things. This year, North Carolina voters aren’t just picking people for office. We’re being asked to vote on three NC constitutional amendments that would rewrite parts of the state constitution itself, and that’s a much bigger deal than it sounds.
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Here’s the thing about constitutional amendments: they’re not like a regular law that a future legislature can tweak or repeal with a simple majority. Once something is written into the constitution, undoing it means going through this same ballot process all over again. That’s by design. The constitution is supposed to hold the rules that outlast any one election cycle. Which is exactly why it’s worth slowing down and reading these closely instead of just checking boxes on autopilot.
There are three North Carolina constitutional amendments on your ballot this fall. Here’s what each one actually does, and the honest case for why each one deserves a skeptical read before you vote.
Amendment 1: Requiring Photo ID for All Voting, Including Mail-In Ballots
North Carolina already requires photo ID to vote in person. This amendment would extend that requirement to absentee and mail-in ballots too, and it would lock the whole thing into the constitution rather than leaving it as an ordinary state law.
Supporters say this closes a gap and treats every ballot the same way, whether you’re voting at the polls or from your kitchen table. That’s a reasonable-sounding goal on its face.
Here’s where it gets more complicated. Absentee voting in North Carolina already has identity verification built in, it’s just a different process than showing a driver’s license at a polling place. Voting rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, have pointed out that the state hasn’t demonstrated a real problem this amendment is solving. Even legislators who debated the underlying bill noted there wasn’t evidence of the kind of mail-in voter fraud this measure is aimed at preventing. Meanwhile, the people most likely to rely on absentee ballots, military service members stationed away from home, college students, older voters, and rural residents who live far from a DMV, are the ones most likely to run into friction if something goes wrong with the ID requirement.
And because this would be a constitutional amendment rather than a regular statute, any kinks that show up in how it’s actually administered would be much harder to fix later.
Amendment 2: Capping the State Income Tax Rate at 3.5%
This one would permanently cap North Carolina’s income tax rate at 3.5%, written into the constitution so no future legislature could raise it without going back to voters.
The pitch here is straightforward: lower taxes, and a guarantee they stay low. For a lot of Triangle families feeling the pinch of rising costs, that’s an appealing promise.
But look at the actual numbers first. State law already has the income tax rate scheduled to drop to 3.49% by 2027, which is below the cap this amendment would set. In other words, this amendment doesn’t cut anyone’s taxes beyond what’s already scheduled to happen. What it does do is remove flexibility. If there’s a recession, a natural disaster, a public health emergency, or just a future legislature and governor who decide North Carolina needs to invest more in schools or infrastructure, this amendment ties their hands regardless of what voters want at that time. Locking a specific tax rate into the constitution means the only way to change it is another statewide ballot fight, which is a strange way to run a state budget that needs to respond to whatever the next twenty or thirty years actually bring.
Amendment 3: Giving the Legislature Power to Cap Local Property Tax Increases
This amendment would authorize the General Assembly to set limits on how much cities and counties can raise property tax levies. It’s worth noting what this amendment does not do: it doesn’t actually set a limit. It just hands that power to state lawmakers to decide later, through separate legislation, what the limit should be.
The concern from local officials, and it’s a fair one, is that a one-size-fits-all cap set in Raleigh doesn’t account for how different Wake County is from a small rural county trying to fund its schools, or how a fast-growing town like Fuquay-Varina has very different budget needs than a place with a shrinking population. Property taxes are the main way local governments pay for schools, first responders, roads, and parks. If the state caps what counties and municipalities can raise, and a county faces a genuine, unexpected funding need, like a school that needs repairs or a public safety department that needs more staff, the tools to address it at the local level get narrower.
The fact that lawmakers are asking voters to approve giving away this authority before deciding what they’ll actually do with it makes this one especially hard to evaluate on the merits. You’re being asked to sign a blank check.
The Bigger Picture on NC Constitutional Amendments
None of these three amendments are simple. Each one has a version of itself that sounds reasonable in a campaign mailer, and each one has real, specific tradeoffs that get glossed over in a thirty-second explanation. That’s exactly the kind of thing a constitutional amendment shouldn’t be: something voters wave through because it sounds fine at first read.
Whatever you decide when you fill out your ballot, do it after reading the actual amendment language, not just the headline version. Your county board of elections website will have the full ballot text, and nonpartisan groups like the League of Women Voters of North Carolina publish plain-language breakdowns of exactly what a “yes” or “no” vote means for each one.
This isn’t about telling you how to vote. It’s about making sure you’re voting on what’s actually in front of you, not the summary someone else decided to give you.
Early voting information, polling locations, and registration deadlines are available through the NC State Board of Elections.
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