By Leland Ware
Louis L. Redding Chair and
Professor for the Study of
Law and Public Policy
University of Delaware
On July 29, 2016,
the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down North Carolina’s blatant
efforts to suppress African American votes. The case began in 2013, after the
Supreme Court issued the decision in Shelby
County v. Holder, which
overturned key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
On the day after Shelby was decided, North
Carolina’s Republican-dominated the legislature announced an intention to enact
“omnibus” election law. Before proceeding, however, the legislature obtained detailed
data that examined, by race, a number of voting practices.
Relying on this
data, the General Assembly enacted legislation restricting voting options
favored by African Americans. The laws shortened an early voting period by a full week, eliminated
same-day registration, prohibited the counting of ballots cast out of precinct,
eliminated a preregistration program for 16-and 17-year olds, and implemented a
strict photo ID requirement. Many observers called the legislation “the worst
voter suppression law in the nation.”
A number of
organizations filed suit contending that the legislation was motivated by a discriminatory
intent in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments. They also contended that the laws had a discriminatory
effect in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and burdened the right to
vote in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Despite the
mountain of evidence of discrimination that was presented, the trial court
rejected the claims finding
that the plaintiffs had “failed to show that such disparities will have
materially adverse effects on the ability of minority voters to cast a ballot
and effectively exercise the electoral franchise.”
The Fourth Circuit reversed.
It concluded that the General Assembly enacted the “most restrictive voting law
North Carolina has seen since the era of
Jim Crow.” The record showed that
the laws were not, as the state contended, the product of the back-and-forth of
routine partisan struggle. In fact, the General Assembly enacted the changes in
the immediate aftermath of unprecedented African American voter participation
in a state with a troubled racial history and racially polarized voting. The
Court stated:
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
assuredly 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.
The Court found
that the totality of the circumstances compelled a finding of intentional
discrimination. These circumstances included North Carolina’s history of voting discrimination,
the dramatic upswing in African American voting, the legislature’s knowledge
that African Americans’ voting translated into support for democratic
candidates. Additional considerations were the elimination of tools African
Americans used to vote and the imposition of new barriers to voting. This
evidence showed that the General Assembly used the new voting laws to preserve
the Republican majority and did so by targeting black voters.
North Carolina NAACP
v. McCrory is a significant win for Civil Rights advocates. It will have an
impact on the 2016 presidential election. The radical right wing has developed
an array of subtle and overt methods to suppress voter registration and
turnout. Voter suppression today is achieved through regulatory, legislative
and administrative means, resulting in modern day equivalents to poll taxes and
literacy tests that kept Black voters from the ballot box in the Jim Crow era.
The laws struck down in North Carolina
NAACP v. McCrory are examples of the flagrant
institutional racism that continues to haunt us.
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