The electoral dirty work done by dozens of state legislatures in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder is the focus of determined legal challenges by voting-rights advocates, and decisions are coming down at a dizzying pace. Not every court involved has come down in favor of voters, but there’s encouraging evidence that judges, including conservatives, recognize state laws purportedly passed to ensure “voting integrity” for what they really are: suppressive tactics. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, state legislators representing nearly half the country rolled back effective reforms and erected new barriers to voting. It was a throwback to the era before the 1960s, when Jim Crow laws finally triggered passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
Section 5 of the VRA, in effect for nearly 50 years, prevented much of the country—mostly Southern states and localities with a history of voting discrimination—from passing laws or rules geared to preventing citizens of color from casting ballots. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept thousands of discriminatory practices from seeing the light of day. When the Supreme Court gutted Section 5 in Shelby County, states previously required to submit proposed voting changes to the federal government for preclearance—along with some never covered by the preclearance requirement—rushed to pass laws meant to disenfranchise African Americans, Latinos, and others, including students, seniors, and the disabled.
North Carolina was the worst offender. The day Shelby County came down, Republican legislators introduced omnibus legislation that would’ve been stopped by Section 5. It eliminated same-day registration, preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds, out-of-precinct voting, and reduced early voting. When the Tar Heel State adopted those voter-friendly measures in 2000, it had ranked 37th in turnout nationally; over a 12-year span, it improved to 11th. The reforms were particularly effective in the black community: 41.9 percent of African American voters turned out in 2000, 71.5 percent in 2008, and 68.5 percent in 2012. The cause and effect were clear. The 2013 bill also included a new hurdle—a requirement that each voter produce at the polls one of a select few types of photo ID. A federal appeals court later concluded that the favored IDs were chosen based on evidence that whites were likelier than blacks to possess them. Public-assistance ID cards—whose holders in North Carolina are typically poor and often black—were not on the acceptable list.
Full Article: Voting Rights: Will Court Protections Deliver?.