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North Carolina Court Orders State To Quit Being Racists, Let Parolees Vote

Bout damn time!

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In a bench order issued this morning, a three-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court ordered North Carolina elections officials to immediately begin registering probationers and parolees to vote.

Under a 1973 law, North Carolina citizens convicted of a felony may only regain eligibility to vote after completing their entire sentences, including parole and probation, and paying all fines and fees. The plaintiffs challenged the law as an explicit attempt to suppress Black votes, violating the North Carolina Constitution’s Free Elections, Equal Protection, and Freedom of Speech Clauses, as well as its ban on property qualifications to vote.

The NAACP and the Carolina Success Initiative, a post-incarceration reentry non-profit, led the charge, accompanied by various individuals, such as Shakita Norman, who finds herself ineligible to vote in the upcoming election since COVID restrictions blocked her from completing her probationary sentence, according to the Carolina Public Press.

In September of 2020, the panel preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the law. The state’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein refused to appeal, and the case has been prosecuted by Republican legislators, who may well appeal the ruling permanently enjoining enforcement.

If the decision is upheld in the state’s highest court, where liberal justices maintain a 4-3 majority, it would represent a massive pool of potential new voters. While media outlets have put the number at 55,000, the complaint alleges that there are 70,000 North Carolinians who were never incarcerated, like Ms. Norman, or completed their custodial sentences but are disenfranchised due to a 1973 law.

At the trial, the sides have sparred over whether the legislative history demonstrates specific intent to disenfranchise Black voters, simply outsourcing the vote suppression to judges, who could impose long non-custodial sentences as a means of foreclosing access to the ballot box. But the law’s disparate impact on Black residents of the state is stark: while African Americans make up just 20 percent of the population at large, they represent a full 40 percent of the parolees and probationers disenfranchised under the statute, according to the complaint.

It’s not clear what effect this will have on next year’s election, other than making it more fair. The majority of people re-enfranchised never voted before their convictions, and indeed the cohort is majority White without a college degree, a demographic largely favorable to Republicans. Brass tacks, this might be a wash when it comes to statewide races, such as next year’s senate contest. But, as the Carolina Public Press notes, in smaller districts where the margin of victory has been narrow, re-enfranchising Black voters might swing a close race.

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It also bodes well for the coming fight over post-census redistricting, where the state’s highest court already tossed out the maps once in 2019, describing them as a racial gerrymander. As election law guru and University of Florida professor Michael McDonald remarked on Twitter, “I know these are separate issues, but if the North Carolina courts are expanding voting rights by removing felony disenfranchisement, I can’t imagine they will allow a Republican gerrymander.”

Inshallah!

Voting rights restored to 55,000 North Carolinians [Carolina Public Press]
Voting rights for 55,000 hang on NC court decision [Carolina Public Press]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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