Election laws struck down in North Carolina, Wisconsin
A federal appeals court Friday struck down North Carolina’s requirement that voters show identification before casting ballots and reinstated an additional week of early voting.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was an overwhelming victory for civil rights groups and the Justice Department that argued the voting law was designed to dampen the growing political clout of African American voters, who participated in record numbers in the elections of 2008 and 2012.
And later Friday, a federal judge threw out as unconstitutional a host of Wisconsin election laws passed in recent years, saying they unfairly benefited Republicans who had enacted them and made it more difficult for Democrats to vote.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson’s ruling keeps in place the state’s voter identification law, unlike the ruling in North Carolina and an earlier one in
Texas, but he ordered broad changes. The sweeping ruling was a defeat for Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature. It will not affect Wisconsin’s upcoming Aug. 9 primary but will take effect for the Nov. 8 presidential election unless overturned on appeal.
In the North Carolina case, “We can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the majority.
Opponents of the law, lead by the state NAACP, asked the three-judge panel to reverse a lower court ruling that upheld the voting rules.
In 2013, North Carolina lawmakers overhauled the election law soon after the Supreme Court got rid of a requirement that certain states with a history of discrimination receive pre-approval before changing voting rules. Legislators eliminated same-day voter registration, rolled back a week of early voting and put an end to out-of-precinct voting.
During oral arguments, Judges James Wynn and Henry Floyd remarked on the timing of the changes, and on comments from a state senator who said lawmakers were no longer restrained by the “legal headache” of the Voting Rights Act.
In Wisconsin, a spokesman for the state Department of Justice, which defended the laws, said the agency plans to appeal to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though attorneys were still reviewing the 120-page decision Friday evening.
Judge Peterson ordered the state to quickly issue credentials valid for voting to anyone trying to obtain a free photo ID for voting but lacking the underlying documents such as birth certificates to obtain one. He called the state’s current process for getting free IDs to people who lack such documents “a wretched failure” because it has left a number of overwhelmingly black and Hispanic citizens unable to obtain IDs.
Judge Peterson also struck down restrictions limiting municipalities to one location for in-person absentee voting and limiting in-person early voting to weekdays, allowing municipalities to hold weekend early voting sessions. He said imposing weekday limitations intentionally discriminates against Democratic-leaning blacks in Milwaukee.