The head of the state’s NAACP said the civil rights organization is broadening its lawsuit against North Carolina’s new voter ID law and election law changes. The Rev. William Barber, North Carolina NAACP president, said the organization was making it clear in the lawsuit that the new law would have a disparate impact on Hispanics as well as African Americans. He also said that the state would add the elimination of pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds to the lawsuit. Meantime, a former member of the Federal Elections Commission said the expanded lawsuit still fails to prove that aspects of the state’s election reform laws are unconstitutional. “We will take on the issue of Latinos, and how this bill is impacting the Latino community,” Barber said Thursday during a telephone press conference. He said Maria Palmer, a newly elected member of the Chapel Hill Town Council and the first Hispanic elected to that post, was being added to the lawsuit as a plaintiff.
Barber said Palmer would be harmed by the new law. Before she could run for re-election, he said, she would incur time and expense in educating voters about the law’s voter ID requirements.
“We also have amended this complaint to challenge the law that says you cannot in fact register 16- and 17-year-olds,” Barber said. “It is strange to us that this governor and this legislature would want to dampen the hopes and the dreams and the participation of young people.”
Under the now closed pre-registration system, high school students were allowed to register, but they could not vote until they reached age 18.
Full Article: NAACP Expands Election Law Challenge.