Just when the right to vote, so cherished and so disputed, seem entrenched around the country, a new chapter in the long-running battle to secure it has opened. That chapter is unfolding in North Carolina, which holds its presidential primaries on March 15. In a matter of weeks, a federal judge in the state will decide whether to uphold or repeal new state requirements for photo identification from citizens who want to vote. The requirements are controversial, as some see them as an effort to curb African-American and Hispanic voting participation just as these groups are becoming a larger portion of the overall voter population. No matter the outcome, the case is likely to be regarded as a harbinger of whether enfranchisement applies to every eligible citizen, or whether it can be circumscribed as it has often been in the country’s past. In recent years, more than a dozen states, including Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin, have adopted new voter identification laws. And Florida and Ohio have curbed early voting.
This shift, Ari Berman writes in his new book, Give Us the Ballot, The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, gathered steam at the state level after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s new voter identification law in 2008.
Like-minded state legislatures began adopting such restrictions at a greater pace after President Barack Obama’s first election. In North Carolina, a high turnout among African-American and young voters helped him win the state’s 15 electoral votes and become the first Democrat to carry the state in 32 years. Four years ago, black voter turnout exceeded that of white voters for the first time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Full Article: As Primaries Loom, Voting Rights Are Challenged in North Carolina – Fortune.