Burn Book for September 3, 2014

Eagle-eyed readers might have viewed Tuesday’s graph about UNC’s voluminous Yik Yak usage with some suspicion. UNC, after all, is home to twice as many students as Duke. 

It would only make sense that our Yakking numbers, when presented in absolute, bar-graph terms, would eclipse those of the Blue Devils (who really should have more to complain about anyway).

But we crunched the numbers, and it’s true: UNC students really are more inclined to yak. 

We boast a 2.4 yak-per-student rate (to date), while Duke’s remains a paltry .44 percent. Tar Heel victory!

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In our Tuesday article about increased One Card security, Nathan Shafar, who manages the One Card office, was quoted making a dubious claim — that student PIDs are  “public information.” 

The registrar’s website backs this up. But UNC’s PID lookup service requires the last six digits of one’s social security number, a birthdate and, of course, a CAPTCHA. 

So, short of a public records request, it seems your PID is safe. But it explains why the dining hall staff give us the side-eye when we forget our One Cards. If someone goes to that much trouble to get our PIDs, they deserve a meal on the house. 

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The state legislature has made a point of overhauling North Carolina’s voting regulations. 

A controversial new policy would require voters to present a government ID at the voting booth. This measure is ostensibly meant to address extant widespread voter fraud. The State Board of Elections said potential fraud revealed in an April report could easily be the result of clerical error. Four state legislators were found on the list of duplicate names pointed to by advocates of the ID law. 

So, is voter fraud the scourge of our democracy? Probably not.