North Carolina Passes the Country's Worst Voter Suppression Law

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I've been in Texas this week researching the history of the Voting Rights Act at the LBJ Library. As I've been studying how the landmark civil rights law transformed American democracy, I've also been closely following how Republicans in North Carolina -- parts of which were originally covered by the VRA in 1965 -- have made a mockery of the law and its prohibition on voting discrimination.

Late last night, the North Carolina legislature passed the country's worst voter suppression law after only three days of debate. Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog called it "the most sweeping anti-voter law in at least decades" The bill mandates strict voter ID to cast a ballot (no student IDs, no public employee IDs, etc.), even though 318,000 registered voters lack the narrow forms of acceptable ID according to the state's own numbers and there have been no recorded prosecutions of voter impersonation in the past decade. 

The bill cuts the number of early voting days by a week, even though 56 percent of North Carolinians voted early in 2012. The bill eliminates same-day voter registration during the early voting period, even though 96,000 people used it during the general election in 2012 and states that have adopted the convenient reform have the highest voter turnout in the country. African-Americans are 23 percent of registered voters in the state, but made up 28 percent of early voters in 2012; 33 percent of those who used same-day registration and 34 percent of those without state-issued ID.

And that's just the start of it. In short, the bill eliminates practically everything that encourages people to vote in North Carolina, replaced by unnecessary and burdensome new restrictions. At the same time, the bill expands the influence of unregulated corporate influence in state elections. Just what our democracy needs--more money and less voting!

"I want you to understand what this bill means to people," said Representative Mickey Michaux (D-Durham), the longest-serving member of the North Carolina House and a veteran of the civil rights movement who grew up in the Jim Crow South. "We have fought for, died for and struggled for our right to vote. You can take these 57 pages of abomination and confine them to the streets of Hell for all eternity."

Here are the details of everything bad about the bill, via North Carolina Policy Watch. It's a very long list:

ï"š · The end of pre-registration for 16 & 17 year olds

ï"š · A ban on paid voter registration drives

ï"š · Elimination of same day voter registration

ï"š · A provision allowing voters to be challenged by any registered voter of the county in which they vote rather than just their precinct

ï"š · A week sliced off Early Voting

ï"š · Elimination of straight party ticket voting

ï"š · A provision making the state's presidential primary date a function of the primary date in South Carolina

ï"š · A provision calling for a study (rather than a mandate) of electronic candidate filing