After an inexplicable 17-day delay the state of North Carolina has finally gotten around to making an "emergency" appeal to the Supreme Court to allow it to continue to discriminate against minority voters.
“Maintaining the status quo ... and permitting this year’s general election to proceed under the same rules as this year’s primary election will avoid voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,” the state’s lawyer, Paul Clement, a former solicitor general who specializes in Supreme Court practice, wrote in the petition.
Notably, Clement didn’t ask the high court to reinstate the provisions eliminating same-day voter registration and out-of-precinct voting ― which means that North Carolina voters who intend to rely on those measures will have them at their disposal on Nov. 8.
“This is a big win for plaintiffs” challenging the North Carolina law, wrote Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in voting rights and election law.
But as Hasen noted, the timing of Monday’s petition seems to belie its “emergency” nature, since the original ruling was issued 17 days ago and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) had vowed to be more timely in asking the high court to intervene―a delay that may tell the justices the state may not really be in a big rush.
While it is seemingly conceding same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting, the state is asking the court to rescue three key components of the law: photo voter ID, early voting restrictions, and elimination of pre-registration for 16-year olds.
Hasen sees a problem for North Carolina in finding a fifth justice on the Supreme Court to uphold those restrictions, both because the state is arguing that it's urgent the stay is lifted, when they delayed their appeal by well over two weeks, and because the 4th circuit found "intentional discrimination by the state, and "such a finding should weigh heavily on a court in considering whether a last minute change is warranted. That is, even if a change comes at the last minute from a court, it can well be justified if the state has engaged in deliberately bad conduct." He expects the court to deny the stay.