On Friday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Republican state legislators deliberately and openly sought to block black voters from voting with the law, which was passed in 2013. It also banned same day voter registration and required voters to bring a valid photo identification to the polls. The 4th Circuit of Appeals recently overturned North Carolina’s voter ID law, citing it as discriminatory.
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Separately in another swing state, Wisconsin, a federal judge found that parts of a law concerned “with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement. particularly in minority communities”.
Black voter participation has surged in North Carolina – which could potentially hurt the GOP.
The court found that North Carolina’s law violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by targeting black voters “with nearly surgical precision”. The law also allowed for more poll watchers and made it easier to challenge voters or their ballots.
North Carolina legislative leaders Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, both Republicans, issued a statement that they would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and blasted the judges as “three partisan Democrats”. “And eliminated or reduced registration and voting access tools that African-Americans disproportionately used”.
Voting standards in the U.S. are agreed upon at a local level and come under scrutiny before presidential polls in the so-called swing states, where voters may choose either Democrats or Republicans. North Carolina went to Obama in 2008, and was narrowly won by Mitt Romney in 2012.
While North Carolina has been the focus of criticism for legislation that requires voters to present photo identification at polling places – a measure a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against Friday because it targeted African-Americans “with nearly surgical precision” – Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Wisconsin also saw their legislation overturned, according to the Associated Press.
“Such examples provide the impetus for states to vigilantly revise, reform, and upgrade their election laws wherever necessary to protect the vote, which is exactly what North Carolina’s current leadership did”, said Dr. Creech in his op-ed.
The Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the measures violated the Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act by targeting black voters “with nearly surgical precision”.
North Carolina’s law required voters to show certain photo IDs when voting. They were also disproportionately less likely to have an ID, more likely to cast a provisional ballot and take advantage of pre-registration. “… [W] ith race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude numerous alternative photo IDs used by African Americans”. A key concern was that white voters could be more likely to have those IDs.
– No. 2: When Democrats say the legislation is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, they are being disingenuous. As Hasen notes, there’s another Wisconsin voter ID case that’s already before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, leading to the possibility the two cases could be consolidated.
The court said the North Carolina provisions targeted African Americans with “almost surgical precision”.
A federal judge on Friday threw out as unconstitutional a host of Wisconsin election laws passed in recent years, saying they unfairly benefited Republicans who had enacted them and made it more hard for Democrats to vote. Prior to the court’s ruling, the law was challenged by North Carolina’s NAACP chapter and the Department of Justice.
This photo taken March 15, 2016, shows a NC Voter ID rules posted at the door of the voting station at the Alamance Fire Station in Greensboro, N.C. “That’s the only reasonable interpretation of what transpired here”. Governor McCrory commented on the ruling. Because of the ruling, she said, “North Carolinians will now be able to register and vote free of the obstacles created by the Legislature in 2013”.
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“We can not ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history”, Motz wrote.
