We knew North Carolina’s controversial voter ID law was bad.
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The laws detailing strict voting rules – including ID requirements – in North Carolina were enacted in 2013, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that two sections of the Voting Rights Act, which required certain states with a history of discrimination to have changes to their voting laws approved by the Department of Justice, were unconstitutional.
North Carolina legislative leaders said they would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and blasted the judges as “three partisan Democrats”. They came out to vote in record numbers in 2008 and 2012 for President Barack Obama, and helped to turn the traditionally Republican-leaning state into a swing state.
By the state’s own admission, these voting restrictions disproportionately affected the state’s African-American population. Or is it, as the appeals court ruled Friday, because laws were written with “discriminatory intent?”.
“Although the new provisions target African Americans with nearly surgical precision, they constitute inept remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist”, the decision says. Today’s ruling also reversed limits the same state law placed on early voting, same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting, and preregistration.
“The court seems to have missed the forest in carefully surveying the many trees”. The ruling will reverse all of the actions put in place by the North Carolina legislature, but will not return it under federal supervision. “And eliminated or reduced registration and voting access tools that African-Americans disproportionately used”.
Voting-rights advocates have had a pretty encouraging month. “It’s a powerful precedent that … federal courts will protect voting rights of voters of color”, Riggs said.
“Supporters of the photo ID requirement say it will prevent voter fraud, but I don’t think there is enough fraud to warrant such a law”, Henderson said.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP has, in the past, called the law a “voter suppression law”. The panel, which included U.S. Circuit Judges James Wynn and Henry Floyd, found the 2013 voting rules changes violated the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
The federal court in Richmond, Virginia, found that the primary objective of North Carolina’s wasn’t to stop voter fraud, but rather to disenfranchise minority voters.
Within hours of the Friday decision, Democratic candidates and liberal groups in North Carolina pounced on the court news, claiming a victory and saying the ruling proves GOP lawmakers meant to disenfranchise minority voters with the law. An additional 12,000 people were unable to register to vote on the same day as the election.
The court said that in crafting the law, the Republican-controlled general assembly requested and received data on voters’ use of various voting practices by race. “Identifying and restricting the ways African Americans vote was an easy and effective way to do so”, the court stated. On Friday, North Carolina’s Voter ID law was struck down and it is fantastic for so many reasons.
Stone has said on numerous occasions during his years in Robeson County politics, he has observed cases of voter fraud and other election law violations.
In a blow to the NC Republican agenda, a federal three judge panel has struck down the 3 year old voter ID law which had been implemented this year. The state’s Republican leadership – Senate Leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore and Gov. The state did not immediately respond to the ruling.
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The Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the North Carolina measures violated the Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act by targeting Black voters “with nearly surgical precision”.
