By: Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
This is a follow up on N.C. State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory
African-American voters in North Carolina were “targeted with almost surgical precision” by the North Carolina legislature, according to a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote the opinion dismantling, point by point, all the provisions rushed through the Legislature in the days immediately following the landmark voting rights decision in Shelby County v. Holder on June 25, 2013.
In the Shelby decision, the Supreme Court released states that, after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, were required to clear all changes to voting policies and practices with either a federal court or the Department of Justice. Former slave states, where Jim Crow laws abound that disenfranchised minority voters for decades, were released from the pre-clearance requirement and allowed to make whatever changes they wanted to voting policies. States like North Carolina and Texas moved immediately – within days – to initiate laws increasing restrictions on voter access.
In North Carolina, one day after the Shelby decision, the State Legislature designed and accelerated passage of an “omnibus” bill with five provisions restricting voting access. These provisions, aimed at curbing voter fraud, disproportionately affected African-American voter turnout in myriad ways.
· Provision one required voters show a DMV-issued ID in order to vote. The bill excluded non-government issued identification and no longer allowed voters to use recently expired IDs. According to Judge Motz, African-Americans disproportionately lack DMV-issued identification.
· Provision two eliminated early voting days from 17 to 10 when 60% of blacks voted early compared to 44-49% of whites. Among the 17 was one of two Sundays which historically are “Souls to the polls” days when African-American churches provide transportation to polling places.
· Provision three eliminated same-day voter registration, an effort that disproportionately affected blacks who are more likely to move and need to re-register and vote on the same day.
· Provision four eliminated out-of-precinct voting which affected black voters who tend to lack access to the kind of voter education programs that inform them about their correct polling places. Because of the increased rates of mobility, African-Americans are more likely to go to the wrong polling place.
· Provision five ended a pre-registration program for high school students who could’ve automatically registered to vote at 18 when they received their driver’s license. According to the State, the program was eliminated because it was “too confusing.”
Legislation like this in North Carolina is exactly what Shelby opponents were afraid of: Fast-tracked restrictions and laws framed in seemingly race-neutral ways that don’t appear on paper to have the intent to disenfranchise but have the effect of doing exactly that.
Despite appearances, NAACP v. McCrory articulated a clear message to other states that discrimination “need not be the sole or even primary motive for the legislation, just that it was a motivating factor.” Restricting access to a group of people, particularly racial groups, dilutes voter efficacy. This hampers their ability to elect members of a specific party and results in racially polarized voting. As African-Americans have consistently voted Democratic, the Court found these restrictions imposed by the North Carolina state legislature in 2013 – a time when Republicans had the majority in the House, Senate, and the Governor’s mansion – intentionally discriminatory to black voters and likely to have an adverse effect on Democratic candidates.
The facts Judge Motz methodically presented revealed concerted efforts to subdue the effects of rising black voter turnout, efforts that reflect insidious machinations by Republicans to dilute an influential bloc of voters in as fast a way as possible. Take for instance black voter registration in North Carolina prior to the 2013 bill, which grew to 51.1% between 2000 and 2012. African-American turnout also grew from 41.9% in 2000, to 71.5% in 2008, and 68.5% in 2012. “Not coincidentally, during this period North Carolina emerged as a swing state in the national elections,” according to the decision.
Vote dilution mitigates the power that comes with racially polarized voting. Since African-American voters in North Carolina overwhelmingly vote Democratic, [85% of African-Americans voted for Kerry in 2004, 95% for Obama in 2008; 27% of whites voted for Kerry, 35% for Obama] any restrictions would protect the very architects who designed the law in 2013.
North Carolina’s Legislature and the lower court failed to see the “forest in surveying the trees” and the “inextricable link between race and politics” that resulted in the disenfranchisement of thousands of African-American votes. According to the Judges, “Indeed, neither this legislature – nor, as far as we can tell, any other legislature in the Country – has ever done so much, so fast, to restrict access to the franchise.”
Fast is an understatement. Take for instance the glaring disparity in the way the first draft of the bill – which in its 16 pages included only one minor voter identification provision – was handled compared to the second draft, a 57-page “omnibus” mother of a bill that included five voter restrictive provisions.
The first draft, released in April of 2013, received six weeks of hearings and debate, and the backing of opposing party members. It sat unchanged until June 26, 2013, one day after the Shelby decision was announced by the Supreme Court. That day the Legislature put the same bill on steroids, editing the one provision and adding four more.
The second draft offered no public debate or action for a month, was released on the down low for which no minutes of meetings about the bill exist, and moved through the General Assembly in a record three days. “This hurried pace, of course, strongly suggests an attempt to avoid in-depth scrutiny,” wrote Judge Motz.
The three judges criticized the district court for allowing the state to chalk up the restrictions to one party playing “politics as usual” against the other. Judge Motz, in perhaps the most derisive commentary in the decision, condemns this notion. “We recognize that elections have consequences, but winning an election does not empower anyone in any party to engage in purposeful racial discrimination. When a legislature dominated by one party has dismantled barriers to African American access to the franchise, even if done to gain votes, ‘politics as usual’ does not allow a legislature dominated by the other party to re-erect those barriers.”
Particularly damning was the fact that the legislature requested data that broke down DMV-issued identification ownership, absentee voting, early voting, same-day registration, and provisional voting by race during the drafting of the bill. Analysis of this data would’ve (or should’ve) revealed to lawmakers that African-American voters are disproportionately impacted in each category. With this revelation, any argument by the State that there was no intent to discriminate against black voters and no knowledge that the restrictions would have such adverse impacts is stunningly impossible.
You’re a state with a proven record of voter fraud that wants to quash this. Fine. But if their intent was honestly to curb voter fraud these restrictions look more like the State brought a machine gun to a knife fight.
What are these state-wide rushes to reform voting processes always about? Voter fraud, the integrity of the election process, restoring public confidence? Yes, those things are important and while it would seem as if North Carolina must’ve had an outbreak of recent voter fraud, according the Judge Motz “the State has failed to identify even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud.”
Further disproving the state’s genuine interest in thwarting fraud, the only evidence of actual voter fraud has been with mail-in absentee ballots, but you’ll note not one of the provisions repaired this alleged problem. According to the opinion, “Notably, the legislature also had evidence that absentee voting was not used by African-Americans; indeed, whites disproportionately use absentee voting.”
The three judge panel reversed the decision of the lower court and would’ve likely recommend the case be remanded back to the state and lower court for revision or reconsideration. Not this time. Writing that a remand “would accomplish little,” they, in essence repealed the law and gave no second chances.
While the Judges could’ve sanctioned the State by putting them back under a Section 5 pre-clearance requirement, they stopped short of going that far. The next steps for North Carolina are to either request an en banc hearing in which all the judges at the 4th Circuit would rehear the case, or they could appeal to the Supreme Court. It’s likely that even if they got four Justices to grant a hearing of the case they would end up with a 4-4 decision, which would leave this decision in place.
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
If you want to open up the presidential debates:
http://www.jill2016.com/openthedebatespetition?recruiter_id=1343468
@paul
who knows why Bernie caved? Personally, I believe someone threatened Jane or his grands. But it doesn’t matter to us. Bernie was the catalyst we needed to start the Revolution. we have moved to Jill Stein.
@TIN
I think a major difference is that your grandmother, despite lack of formal schooling internalized the values she had been taught through her native culture. Thing is that too many blacks do not have that foundation – especially in Dixie. These folks are manipulated by power hungry authorities like preachers and politicians who are feeding mightily at Massa’s table and doing nothing to empower their brothers and sisters.
I volunteered for a program that emphasizes literacy in black elementary schools here locally in Charleston, SC. Apparently if children do not master literacy by the time they are 8 or 9 they most likely never will. It was an amazing experience working with these kids – we were taught right off never to ask about family as many had no contact with their biological fathers. These kids live in the hood and many had never even seen the ocean. They live in a bizarre bubble which only guarantees that future generations will continue along the same self-defeating path.
One day there was a fire drill and we all had to line up outside. I noticed that all the people in authority were white folks. The blacks/browns grow up never seeing an educated person of color.
this benefits the power brokers in both the Demoncrat and Repuglican parties.
However, thanx to Bernie – more and more have crossed the barrier and we are working on real change.
Nick:
I agree it was despicable, but that’s how political parties work. They are, after all, private clubs rather than democratic institutions. Insiders make the rules and select decision processes designed to make certain that successful candidates fall within acceptable philosophical parameters. Trump is the Republican nominee because that party didn’t take him seriously until it was too late to do anything about it.
I wonder if there will ever come a time in the country when the courts no longer treat black people as children. If someone, or some group, isn’t willing to make a minimal effort to vote, such as obtaining an identification card, or figuring out when the polls are open, do we really need to consider that person “disenfranchised?” Not if that person is an adult, and expected to act like one.
When I was a kid my grandmother always took me to the poll with her. She was an immigrant from a Northern European country, and had only attended school until 4th grade, when she had to quit to help out on the farm. In her adult life, she worked as a hospital cleaning lady. She would spend 8 hours mopping floors and cleaning toilets, then take the bus across town to pick me up, and we would walk about mile to the school polling place, where she had no problem producing a voter I.D. card and voting. Then we walked home and she prepared dinner. It wasn’t a burden or a big deal; just something that she did because she was an adult and adults were expected to vote. Of course, she had never been coddled or treated as an incompetent by the government or the courts, and would have been highly insulted if they attempted to “help” her with the basic duties of living her life responsibly….
SWM:
dream on. Primary voting results for Demoncrats – HRC 616,383 Bernie 460,316 O’Malley 12,007 Rocky 3,350 Other 37,185
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/north-carolina
If you think the majority of Bernie folks are coming over to HRC you are deluded. NC is a closed primary state so many folks only registered as Dems so they could vote for him and have now gone for Jill. While Jill Stein is not currently on the ballot they can still write her in, stay home or vote for the Donald.
Power to the People
@PaulS
Re: “So, blacks in NC cannot figure out where to vote, pass the driver’s test, know where to register to vote? And why are black churches allowed to take the whole congregation to vote on Sunday? Does the DNC still give black pastors ‘walking around money’ to sway their voters?”
Those sistahs from NC, former Demoncrats, Diamond and Silk take liberal talk show host Cenk to task on this:
@Nick
Kudos to you for being involved in your community to help people. I am a sucker — even after living in DC for 2 years and having to step over the homeless on my way to school or work it still breaks my heart – and if I have any cash or coins I always give. If I have time and the person tells me they are hungry then I take them to a sandwich shop and buy them food and listen to their stories. One on one personal interaction is useful as is serving at the soup kitchen or shelters. However, as MLK, Jr. said policies must be changed. Charities and individuals can only do so much.
Just yesterday in lovely Charleston, SC which was recently rated by Travel and Leisure magazine as the top city in the world I was approached by an older lady, clad in ragged clothing who said she was hungry and apologized profusely for bothering me – mind you it was 100 degrees plus humidity. Our local shelter is several blocks away and they serve food only at specific times. We were on our way to a local zine forum and meeting folks so I didn’t have time to take her anywhere. I gave her five bucks and we continued on our way up King Street which has some of the “hottest” restaurants in the nation. The irony was not lost on me.
It’s a wonder when a freebie is involved no one and I mean no one ever has a problem getting to them.
When the dead still vote I guess no one should question life after death.
Autumn,
I think this is hopeful as well!
How bout all the voters being disenfranchised by voting places being closed down? Look at the debacle in Phoenix or Puerto Rico? Or all the people in closed primary states who showed up to vote and were told they were registered as Repuglicans — I’ve only heard complaints from Bernie folks – oddly no Republicans have registered complaints!
I think we need to bring in outside monitors to make sure the General is not stolen by HRC. 2 of the 3 corporations are contributors to her campaign! Votes disappeared in KY and other states. Exit polls were dropped because the results were very different.
Why can’t we, like GB have paper ballots??
Interestingly, all three judges were nominated by Democrats. Motz by Clinton, the other two by Obama. Odd that wasn’t mentioned.
People should skim the report on federal voter reform published in 2005. Jimmy Carter and James Baker were co-chairs of the commission. They recommended voter ID as a way to ensure voter integrity.
http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/Exhibit%20M.PDF
It is noted in the report that 40 million Americans move annually. When they move they usually do not notify the authorities to remove them from the voter files. This means virtually ALL voter registration files are inflated. That makes the task of maintaining accurate files almost impossible and at least creates an opportunity for voter fraud. In addition, we have several million people in the country who are here illegally. According to the study linked below, some non-citizens DO vote illegally. And they tend to vote Democratic. Shocking, I know.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/24/could-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/
@jill
The DNC tactics employed during the convention – scabs, white noise machines, seating arrangements, etc. clearly demonstrate the endemic corruption of the party as well as their blocking Nina Turner from speaking and the MSM not carrying Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination of Sanders (ONLY the LA Times posted the speech in full – PBS only posted 41 seconds of it!) I learned so much it make me feel literally sick. But then I watched footage of the people outside the Convention which gives me so much hope. WE the PEOPLE are going to keep on keepin’ on to fight for justice, truth, money out of politics, the environment, and against the TTP candidates.
Bernie may have caved but the Revolution continues. JillnotHill 2016
Autumn – I think Bernie sold out his troops. He got some kind of deal from the Clintons.
@DarrenSmith
You said, “One aspect about my state that I praise is the effort extended to enfranchise voters. Poll workers are available to those who are disabled. In fact a poll worker will be dispatched to any location within the state to provide accommodation to any voter having any disability. The legislature also many decades ago enacted laws prosecutable for election violations and nearly all are felonies.”
Yes. It should not be too difficult to ensure that people are able to vote. And only once. With the mail route though, you really don’t know for sure who is sending it in. Same with online voting. But those problems should be solvable.
There is just no excuse for the patchwork nonsense we currently have.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
No mention of Hispanics even though they are the fastest growing segment of the State, their votes are irrelevant to Ms. Gallagher. Next lawsuit will address Alaska which discriminates against Blacks on the basis of Weather, remote location, lack of sports which have extensive African-American participation.
Here’s some voter disenfranchisement. This is disgusting. Clinton. Obama and Bernie care nothing about the matter and I hope no one will be deceived about this in the future.
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/31/video-shows-arkansas-democrats-barring-bernie-sanders-delegate-from-convention-floor/
I partially disagree with the notion throwing out Voter ID requirements however do agree with the remainder of the decision.
A legitimate state function to determine qualification to vote is reasonable. Qualifications include that the applicant voter has attained eighteen years in age, a citizen of the United States and the State of residence, not subject to disqualification such as revocation of voting rights, and a resident within the voting district and not concurrently a member of another.
The identification requirement needs to establish only who the person is, not one that can be so narrowly tailored to certain and singular form of identification document that could be one which a person will have difficulty in obtaining. A more restrictive than a driver license, for illustrative purposes, could be a U.S. Passport indicating U.S. citizenship. Such a document becomes a de facto poll tax because this document costs $135.00 for a first time applicant and $110.00 for a renew for adults. And while the passport provides the best means to identify identity and citizenship it is the most difficult and most costly to obtain.
There are many forms of obtaining positive identification of a person. As long as the applicant can proffer who they are by some credible means, it satisfies the only truly requisite requirement.
Much of this controversy can be resolved simply by transitioning to Vote by Mail. One aspect about my state that I praise is the effort extended to enfranchise voters. Poll workers are available to those who are disabled. In fact a poll worker will be dispatched to any location within the state to provide accommodation to any voter having any disability. The legislature also many decades ago enacted laws prosecutable for election violations and nearly all are felonies. And while rare, courts tend to punish violators harshly and prison time is a likelihood.
Squeek, LOL! now, I’m surprised you like a flick w/ a stoner being the main character. I’ve watched The Big Lebowski probably 50 times and still LMAO. The Coen Brothers are masterful writers.
“STFU DONNY!!” Walt must say that 30 times in the flick.
BFM, Thanks. That is something I would like to do. I cook spaghetti on Wednesdays for a free meal center supported by churches in Madison. A great guy runs it. He insists on helpers sitting down and eat w/ the guests. This is a man w/ enormous empathy and common sense. He wants the church people to get to know these homeless and semi homeless people. But, he is not a pushover. He expects people to behave and will run you like an umpire if you get out of line.
Jayne, Another new woman here! Welcome. When I got here there were only a handful of liberal women and paternalistic fascists that “protected” them. With the paternalistic cadre gone, this forum has blossomed w/ more women now than any time prior.
Regarding your point, as w/ many liberal issues, one must cast aside real world experience and common sense in order to understand their elevated thinking.