Former North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper posted three photographs of himself voting in the state's primaries on Thursday — then quietly deleted the post and put it back up with one of the images missing.
The original post on X showed Cooper at the polls during early voting, and one of the photographs appeared to show him handing identification to poll workers. That's the same Roy Cooper who, as governor, vetoed legislation that would have required voters to present identification at the ballot box.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee alerted Just The News about the deletion. The reposted version contained two of the original three photos, with one removed.
Cooper's record on voter ID isn't ambiguous. He vetoed a bill that would have required identification to vote in North Carolina elections. He has refused to express support for the SAVE America Act, which requires individuals to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and requires Americans to show ID when casting a ballot.
And yet there he was on Thursday — apparently presenting ID to vote, just like the law he blocked would have required every North Carolinian to do.
NRSC Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia didn't mince words:
"Roy Cooper used an ID to vote — the exact thing he fought against mandating as Governor and would oppose as Senator. It's Democrat hypocrisy at its finest."
The delete-and-repost maneuver tells its own story. Cooper's team apparently realized what the photos conveyed — and moved to scrub the evidence rather than address the contradiction.
Cooper's post carried the unmistakable tone of a campaign pitch. His own words:
"I know there's a lot riding on this race, and I don't take your vote for granted. You can count on me to represent all North Carolinians in the Senate. I exercised my civic duty today, and I hope you'll join me."
Represent all North Carolinians — except, presumably, the ones who wanted a voter ID requirement and watched him veto it.
This is the recurring pattern with Democrats and election integrity. Voter ID is framed as suppression, as an obstacle designed to disenfranchise. The rhetoric is heavy with warnings about democracy under threat. And then, when the cameras roll, the same politicians flash their driver's license at the check-in table without a second thought because they know, as everyone knows, that showing ID to vote is not an unreasonable burden. It's what functioning systems look like.
Cooper's refusal to back the SAVE America Act on Thursday adds another layer. The legislation is straightforward: prove you're a citizen when you register, show ID when you vote. These are baseline measures that most Americans, across party lines, support as common sense.
But Cooper won't touch it. The same man who appeared to voluntarily present his own ID at the polls won't endorse a law asking others to do the same. The position isn't principled. It's positional — calculated to satisfy a Democratic base that treats any election security measure as suspect while personally complying with the very standards he publicly opposes.
What Cooper didn't do on Thursday matters as much as what he did. He didn't explain the deletion. He didn't address the contradiction between his veto record and his apparent conduct at the polls. He didn't offer a reason why voter ID is good enough for a former governor but too burdensome for ordinary citizens.
He just hit delete.
That instinct to erase rather than engage captures something broader about how the left handles its own inconsistencies on election integrity. The argument against voter ID has always depended on abstraction: hypothetical voters who can't obtain identification, theoretical barriers that melt under scrutiny. When a concrete moment arrives that punctures the narrative — a prominent Democrat doing the very thing he told the legislature was unnecessary — the move is to make it disappear.
Cooper can repost all he wants. The screenshot lives forever. And so does the record.