Appeals court has given same-day registration and out-of-precinct
voting a chance of resurrection in North Carolina.
In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked
provisions of a North Carolina voting law that would have ended same-day registration and eliminated the counting of votes cast outside one's precinct. But it left intact a lower court decision that affirmed the law's reducing the number of early voting days, expanding what can be done to challenge voters and eliminating the discretion of county election boards from adding an extra hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances.
The Charlotte Post reports that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court could happen as soon as Thursday.
Plaintiffs in the case, including the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and Common Cause North Carolina, have sued on the grounds that the new law violates the equal protection provisions of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. They argued for a preliminary injunction against the changes. A district court judge turned them down. The appeals panel stated:
Such an injunction would maintain the status quo to prevent irreparable harm while the lawsuit plays itself out in the courts.
But the district court refused. In so doing, the district court laid out what it believed to be the applicable law. Notably, however, the district court got the law plainly wrong in several crucial respects. When the applicable [federal] law is properly understood and applied to the facts as the district court portrayed them, it becomes clear that the district court abused its discretion in denying Plaintiffs a prelminary injunction and not preventing certain provisions of House Bill 589 from taking effect while the parties fight over the bill's legality.
Because there are no do-overs in elections, voting restrictions that discriminate produce irreparable harm, the appeals panel stated, noting that "whether the number is thirty or
thirty-thousand, surely some North Carolina minority voters will be disproportionately adversely affected in the upcoming election." The panel also noted that the district court
"failed to adequately consider North Carolina’s history of voting discrimination."
Until the Supreme Court overturned a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, several North Carolina jurisdictions were required to "pre-clear" any changes in voting laws with the Department of Justice because prior to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act they had discriminated against African Americans to keep them from voting.
One key to stopping voter discrimination is getting the right state secretary of state into office. For that reason, Daily Kos has endorsed five Democratic candidates in secretary of state contests this year. They are Jean Schodorf of of Kansas, Brad Anderson of Iowa,
Joe Neguse of Colorado, Kate Marshall of Nevada and Nina Turner of Ohio.
Help elect these five candidates by chipping in $5 for their campaigns in purple states.