The Persistent Racist Accusations of the NC NAACP and its Continued Attempts to Frustrate a Voter ID Law in North Carolina | Eastern North Carolina Now

    But first let's look at the judicial history: The day the NC Voter ID law was passed (SL 2013-381).

    On August 12, 2013, the NC General Assembly, with the signature of Governor Pat McCrory, enacted the first NC Voter ID law [Carolina Session Law 2013-381, or "SL 2013-381"], which made a number of changes to North Carolina's voting laws. All the changes were to take effect immediately except for the voter photo ID requirement, which would not be effective until January 1, 2016. That same day, the NC NAACP joined several groups in suing to overturn several provisions - provisions they alleged as being racially motivated: the photo-ID requirement, elimination of same-day registration ("SDR"), elimination of the first week of early voting (shortening the total early voting period from seventeen to ten days), elimination of one of the two "souls-to-the-polls" Sunday voting days (which allow churches to provide transportation to voters), prohibition on counting out-of-precinct ("OOP") provisional ballots, elimination of mandatory pre-registration of sixteen-year-olds (when they attend mandatory high school driver's education or go to the DMV to obtain a drivers license), and expansion of poll observers and ballot challenges.

    Trial was set for July 13, 2015. On June 18, 2015, the NC General Assembly passed House Bill 836, and on June 22, 2015, the Governor signed it into law as North Carolina Session Law 2015-103 ("SL 2015-103"). The law relaxed the photo-ID requirement created by SL 2013-381 by providing an additional exception that permits individuals to vote without a photo ID so long as they sign a "reasonable impediment" affidavit. Beginning July 13, 2015, the district court held a trial on the merits of all claims except those challenging the merits of the photo-ID provision, but then the NC NAACP and other plaintiffs sought to also ask the court for an injunction preventing the implementation of the "watered-down" photo ID requirement (as amended, or "watered down" by the "reasonable impediment" provision). In all, the NC NAACP sought a preliminary injunction against the challenged changes to existing voting laws and a preliminary injunction only as to the "soft roll-out" of the photo ID requirement." The district court denied the injunctions, concluding that the plaintiffs did not make a strong enough showing that they would succeed on the merits of their case. The court held that the NC General Assembly did not act with discriminatory intent in enacting its Voter ID omnibus bill and deferred to its wisdom and intent in drafting and passing the law.


    The case was then appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the opinion of the District Court. The opinion was written by Judge Motz.

    The 4th Circuit 3-judge panel noted that all of the voting tools restricted or eliminated by the bill were ones that African-Americans disproportionately used. Furthermore, according to the court, the photo ID requirement imposed a hardship on African-American as they disproportionately lacked them. [Note again that the legislature had amended the bill, in 2015 (version SL 2013-103) before its trial date to include other forms of identification that African-Americans would likely possess, as well as to include a provision providing that if a person could not produce a photo ID, a one free of charge would be provided by the county, but the 4th Circuit ignored that]. Essentially, the 4th Circuit concluded that the NC state legislature acted with discriminatory intent in enacting the 2013 Voter ID bill because it restricted voting mechanisms and procedures that most heavily affect blacks.

    The opinion began:

    "During the period in which North Carolina jurisdictions were covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (preclearance of any voting laws with the US Justice Department), African-American electoral participation dramatically improved. In particular, between 2000 and 2012, when the law provided for the voting mechanisms at issue here (ie, early voting, Sunday voting, same-day voting, provisional voting) and did not require photo ID, African-American voter registration swelled by 51.1% - as compared to an increase of only 15.8% for white voters. African-American turnout similarly surged, from 41.9% in 2000 to 71.5% in 2008 and 68.5% in 2012."

    [The 4th Circuit incorrectly credited North Carolina's very relaxed voting laws with the African-American voter turn-out when the truth is that the turn out was exceptionally high, in relation to white voter turn-out,] because for the first time in our country's history, an African-American was running for president. The African-American community couldn't be more energized!]

    The opinion continued:

    "After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access, by 2013 African-American registration and turnout rates had finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout rates. African-Americans were poised to act as a major electoral force."

    The judges concluded that the sole purpose of the Voter ID law was to prevent that from happening.

    In late June 2013, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, a case that held enormous implications for North Carolina. In it, the Court invalidated Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which provided the preclearance coverage formula to be used by the federal government when assessing a change to a state voting law under Section 5. The government reviews changes to state voting laws under the Voting Rights Act one of two ways: either in an administrative review by the Attorney General, or in court, in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court in Shelby found that Section 4 was unconstitutional as an undue burden on the States' inherent sovereign powers under the Tenth Amendment because it continued to rely on greatly outdated data which had no place in our current times. finding it based on outdated data. [The Shelby v. Holder case was addressed in detail earlier). Consequently, as of that date (late June 2013), North Carolina no longer needed to preclear changes to its election laws. It was no longer under the historic presumption that any changes to election laws would be an intentional scheme to disenfranchise African-American voters. North Carolina was free from the taint of its discriminatory past.

    Up until that decision, the NC legislature had been working on a Voter ID bill. Voters were getting very impatient, but the legislators assured their constituents that a good, legally-sound bill would take time; it needed to be reviewed and re-reviewed by lawyers in order to make sure it would be "challenge-proof. When the Shelby decision came out, the legislature decided to enlarge the Voter ID bill into an omnibus bill, seeking several changes to what was without a doubt, an extensive early voting period. That bill would become Session Law ("SL") 2013-381, which we all knew as the 2013 NC Voter ID bill.


    Noting that the Shelby opinion came out just as blacks had become energized to vote and as the NC legislature was putting its Voter ID in final form, the 4th Circuit concluded that is when the so-called "racist" republicans (the court's view) hatched their diabolical discriminatory scheme to disenfranchise black voters.

    The opinion read:

    "But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an "omnibus" election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices used in North Carolina. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans."

    The court continued: "In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications." I bring this particular statement up because of several reasons:

    (1) The justifications were sufficient for the district court. As a court is supposed to do, it defers judgement and wisdom to the legislative branch when reviewing a law, being careful not to substitute its judgement.

    (2) The court mocked the "justifications" offered by the NC legislature, namely voter fraud and potential for voter fraud, claiming the law was passed to "impose cures for problems that did not exist."

    (3) Evidence of voter fraud was not allowed at the trial court (the District Court). I asked Jay Delancy of the Voter Integrity Project, the most reputable group addressing NC voter fraud, the group which has investigated and uncovered verified cases of actual voter fraud, voter fraud schemes, evidence of possible organized criminality in voter and election fraud, and serious potential opportunities for fraud, if he had been asked to give testimony, he told me that he was not allowed to. It is important to note that the Circuit Courts are appeals courts and so it does not hear any testimony. It just reviews the record sent up from the District Court. If the District Court has no evidence (or allowed no evidence) of voter or election fraud, then the Circuit Court cannot assess the credibility of the issue and hence its justification for the Voter ID omnibus bill.

    (4) Consequently, the court lacks the foundation and knowledge to state that "the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the State's true motivation..... which is intentional discrimination."

    "The new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision.... And this bears the mark of intentional discrimination," wrote the court.

    In reaching its conclusion that the NC General Assembly "enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent," the 4th Circuit pointed to what it called a "smoking gun." As mentioned earlier, prior to the enactment of SL 2013-381, the legislature requested and received data as to the racial breakdown of usage of each of the early voting tools and practices that it was seeking to amend. The data was requested and collected in order to help enlighten and guide the General Assembly in its task to amend the state's voting laws. The goal, as it had always been, was to address actual and potential voter fraud (and election fraud), and to remove and minimize such opportunities. The district court concluded as such but the 4th Circuit could only think in terms of race.

    That "smoking gun," by the way, had nothing to do with any requirement to show a photo ID to vote since that provision was a brand new provision and had not yet been in effect for any election; hence, it could not be evaluated. The "photo ID" requirement was actually a voter initiative. Voters were demanding it of their candidates and then when elected, of their representatives. Since only conservatives believe in voter integrity, it made sense that it became a priority when Republicans finally took control of the state government.


    The 4th Circuit looked at the data the legislature collected and the changes it made to the state's voting laws and concluded that according to the data, every change made was one that disproportionately affected African-Americans. Each of the voting tools and practices eliminated or restricted were ones that African-Americans disproportionately took advantage of. They apparently take advantage of the first 7 days of early voting, their churches use the souls-to-the-polls Sundays, they take advantage of same-day voting and same-day registration, they, for some reason, are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the out-of-precinct voting ("of those registered voters who happened to vote provisional ballots outside their resident precinct, a disproportionately high percentage were African American"), and apparently, they disproportionately benefit from pre-registration (I don't know how there can be any racial preference here at all). As the opinion read:

    "In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African-Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the State's true motivation. 'In essence,' as in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006), 'the State took away minority voters' opportunity because they were about to exercise it.' This bears the mark of intentional discrimination. Faced with this record, we can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent."

    Furthermore, it read: "The record makes obvious that the 'problem' the majority in the General Assembly sought to remedy was emerging support for the minority party. Identifying and restricting the ways African-Americans vote was an easy and effective way to do so. We therefore must conclude that race constituted a but-for cause of SL 2013-381, in violation of the Constitutional and statutory prohibitions on intentional discrimination."