The North Carolina NAACP is attempting to thwart the efforts by the state’s government to maintain voter ID laws.
Last week, legal representatives of the North Carolina NAACP filed a brief calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to deny an application from North Carolina’s state government to call and stay the mandate from the Fourth Circuit Court to return the state to its pre-HB 589 days. HB 589 included a set of voter ID laws that the NAACP found to be racially discriminatory.
“It would be a woeful miscarriage of justice to permit North Carolina’s discriminatory voting laws in 2016 by issuing the requested stay,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, in a statement. “North Carolina’s history of voting discrimination, the recent surge in African-American voting power, the sweeping nature of HB 589’s discriminatory provisions, and the legislature’s decision to rush the bill through the legislative process show that race was a factor in the adoption of the law.”
The debate centered around whether or not the changes to voting law had an intentional, illegal impact on nonwhite voters in the state. HB 589 shortened the period for early voting by a week, eliminated same-day registration, required stricter forms of voter ID and prevented the counting of out-of-precinct ballots.
The North Carolina NAACP filed its brief in response to an application filed by the state earlier in August asking the U.S. Supreme Court to put a stay on the Fourth Circuit Court’s ruling, The NAACP said that a stay of any kind would have devastating implications for Black voters in November.
“The stay requested by the state would disrupt the voting practices that have been put in place after the Fourth Circuit’s order and would reinstate discriminatory voting laws, which is repugnant to the guarantees of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act,” stated Daniel Donovan, an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, which represented the North Carolina NAACP. “The Fourth Circuit’s ruling is proper, and discriminatory laws such as HB 589 should have no place in our democracy.”
“A stay at this point will confuse all voters and disenfranchise a significant proportion of them,” said professor Irv Joyner, North Carolina NAACP’s Legal Redress Chair, in a statement. “The Board of Elections at the state and county levels has put in place remedial procedures to enforce the Fourth Circuit’s decision. Notices have gone out to voters that the former 17-day early voting period is restored, and you can register and vote at any early voting site during these days. The state conducted two-days of training for election administrators from every county, using training materials based on the Fourth Circuit’s order.”
Joyner added, “A new voter guide based on the Fourth Circuit’s decision, is online and is being prepared for distribution by mail. The state’s orderly implementation process should not be upended to reinstate a racially discriminatory law.”
