Various news outlets are reporting that the Justice Department will sue North Carolina over its controversial, Republican-backed voting law, which limits early voting and same-day registration and requires an ID at the polls. Experts argue the law disproportionately affects minorities, the poor and the elderly, groups that often lack reliable transportation and government-issued identification – and often support Democrats.
The department recently filed suits against states with equally restictive voting laws, including Texas. According to the New York Times:
The lawsuit, which had been anticipated, will ask a federal court to block North Carolina from enforcing four disputed provisions of its voting law, including a strict photo identification requirement. The lawsuit will also seek to reimpose a requirement that North Carolina obtain “preclearance” from the federal government before making changes to its election rules.
Read the Times story here.
- SalFalko (Flickr Creative Commons)
Related Stories
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2013.
Fantastic news. Voter suppression is literally the GOP’s only chance of holding on to NC next election.
I guess Holder has to keep busy in some way, since he has prosecuted exactly ZERO financial executives and ZERO Bush administration officials.
The GOP and their propaganda arm, Fox News, have done an excellent job of focusing public attention on just the photo ID aspect of their comprehensive voter suppression law.
They have totally diverted attention away from the fact that it makes it difficult for students to vote, and blackmails their parents if the student registers to vote at their school address. The news media almost completely ignores the extremely restrictive list of what constitutes a “valid” ID. Little is reported on the reduction of places and dates when people can vote, or that the targets of these changes are people that have historically tended to vote for Democrats. Virtually unreported is the fact that they loosened the law to allow one person to pick up absentee ballots for multiple people. How does that photo ID requirement work there?
They cite, as need for these changes, that hundreds of dead people are still on the voter registration rolls with no evidence that any of them actually voted. They know that there is no system or agency that purges voter registrations when a person dies. It is not evidence of any fraud. But it makes a good red herring argument for people who don’t actually think about the things politicians claim.
First: Students should NOT be voting unless they have established NC residency. The easiest way to do that? GET AN NC ID OR DRIVERS LICENSE. If that is too hard, then I predict they will fail out of school by Christmas and will go home. End of problem. If they are not planning on staying in our state after graduation, they they do not need to be voting here anyway.
Getting an acceptable ID is tons easier than signing up for Obamacare…another Constitutional Right (according to Liberals). Over 50 different coverage choices along with up to a 70 page application. Oh, you need a computer. That is a lot for a law designed for the poor who lack health care and proper ID.
If all these groups who are screaming and yelling about these laws put half as much effort and money into helping those without proper ID get proper ID, they would be doing them a much greater service.