The Supreme Court acted Wednesday to limit voting rights in North Carolina, after doing the same for Ohio the week previous. Early voting was the key issue in both cases. In North Carolina, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
wrote a dissent, which Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined:
“The Court of Appeals determined that at least two of the measures—elimination of same-day registration and termination of out-of-precinct voting—risked significantly reducing opportunities for black voters to exercise the franchise in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. I would not displace that record-based reasoned judgment,” Ginsburg wrote.
The majority did not explain its decision to allow North Carolina's assault on voting rights, but the reason North Carolina Republicans launched the assault
is clear:
Groups challenging the law urged the justices to let the appeals court’s ruling stand. The state law, they said, had “surgically eliminated the precise forms of registration and voting that had enabled significant expansion of African-Americans’ civic participation in North Carolina over the previous decade.”
A new study from the Government Accountability Office finds that voter ID requirements in Kansas and Tennessee reduced voter turnout overall, but
especially among young people and black people. So, mission accomplished. Reducing voter turnout among groups that tend to vote Democratic is one of the
top Republican strategies to win elections. But, as Meteor Blades noted,
... the impact of these decisions ... is hard to judge. Will they reduce turnout? Or will they spark anger among groups of people who justifiably see themselves as targets Republicans seek to keep away from the polls?
Let's hope it's the latter.
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