So far, they have been at least partially successful in three states: Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Kansas.
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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach listens and takes note as a judge declares in Shawnee County District Court that the state must count potentially thousands of votes from people who registered without providing documentation of their USA citizenship, Friday, July 29, 2016, in Topeka, Kan.
According to Politico, the state of North Carolina will have a chance to appeal the court’s decision to either the full bench of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals or to the Supreme Court. The federal panel also pointed out that the two forms of identification the state required for getting a voter ID card were also “the very same forms of ID excluded by the law”. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting an registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. Today the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit invalidated these restrictions, which it said “targeted African Americans with nearly surgical precision” in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. “Now that the burden has been lifted, I think we can expect more turnout”.
Those 17 are Arizona, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. That’s right. A three-judge panel said that N.C. Republicans meant to discriminate against black citizens.
The Clinton campaign has been targeting North Carolina, and Obama campaigned there alongside Clinton earlier this month, the first time the two had appeared together on the stump. The state that also has closely contested races for U.S. Senate and governor. Democrats, hoping to regain a majority, are eyeing Republican Sen. The case has been sent back to U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder, who in April issued a 485-page decision dismissing all claims in the legal challenge. “Yet, three Democratic judges are undermining the integrity of our elections while also maligning our state”, said Gov. Pat McCrory said in a statement.
The chances of any appeal being heard before the election appeared slim.
North Carolina and other Republican-led states, including many in the South, enacted new voter identification laws nearly immediately after the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which had required states and municipalities with a history of discrimination to seek clearance from the federal government before changing voting rules. So lawmakers eliminated these seven days of voting.
North Carolina legislators imposed the photo ID requirement, curtailed early voting and eliminated same-day registration and voters’ ability to cast out-of-precinct provisional ballots in their home counties.
North Carolina’s voting laws were rewritten in 2013 by the conservative General Assembly to include the ID requirement and other changes.
In its blistering decision Friday, the appellate court firmly rejected that reasoning, charging that the state had devised “cures for problems that did not exist”. U.S. District Judge James Peterson agreed with arguments that the laws were enacted to benefit Republicans and make it harder for Democratic supporters to vote, and ordered a range of changes. Even if done for partisan ends, that constituted racial discrimination. “The record evidence is clear that this is exactly what was done here”.
Black voter participation has surged in North Carolina – which could potentially hurt the GOP.. In its decision, the three-judge panel invalidated a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law passed by the state legislature with “discriminatory intent”.
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Rick Hasen, a law professor and election expert at the UC Irvine School of Law, called the ruling a “big win” for the plaintiffs. “It’s a powerful precedent that…federal courts will protect voting rights of voters of color”.
