McCrory should drop election-law appeal

Published August 19, 2016

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, August 18, 2016.

Gov. Pat McCrory has every right to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision regarding the legislature’s discriminatory election law, as he did Monday, But he should drop his unwise request. The Fourth Circuit has already spoken loudly and clearly on this.

But McCrory wants provisions of the legislature’s rejected law to be reinstated for the coming November election as lawyers for him, legislative leaders and other state officials craft an appeal. The key provisions they want reinstated are requiring the legislature’s chosen forms of ID to vote and reducing early voting to 10 days rather than 17.

Chief Justice John Roberts has responded by asking for a written response from those who sued to overturn the law. We trust they’ll make their case eloquently: The Fourth Circuit ruling was correct. And pivoting back to the restrictive provisions just weeks after they were struck down would create an unjust nightmare of confusion for poll workers and voters.

The lawyers for McCrory and company argue that altering the law would create voter confusion weeks before the election in North Carolina. But we contend just the opposite: With the election less than three months away and elections officials already scrambling to respond to the Fourth Circuit’s righteous decision and educate voters about it, it would be lunacy to pivot back to the bad provisions. Poll workers and voters need time to prepare for a smooth process.

The appeals court rejected the far-reaching voter restrictions passed by the state legislature in 2013 after concluding that they were intended to disenfranchise African Americans, who generally vote heavily in favor of Democrats. In so doing, it pointed to the timing of the law, immediately following a Supreme Court decision that loosened the restrictions of the Voting Rights Act. It also noted that the legislature had received information about the use, by race, of voting practices and limited those used more heavily by African Americans while not touching the practices used more heavily by white voters.

Voter ID was the hot-button issue its supporters used to push the election law, but it contained restrictions on numerous other voting efforts, most notably early voting. It’s popular in this state and has encouraged many more people to vote, which we thought was a foundation of democracy.

The 2013 law limited the use of forms of ID used more heavily by blacks. But “the State has failed to produce one individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud in North Carolina,” the Fourth Circuit Court said in its ruling last month. The appeals court concluded that the legislation targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

We don’t hold out much hope of McCrory and his cohorts dropping this wrongheaded fight. The best hope is that the highest court in the land will quickly decide to let the wise decision of the Fourth Circuit Court stand.

http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-mccrory-should-drop-election-law-appeal/article_98c87f66-26ab-5c99-82d1-70c404588d7a.html