A 2-1 ruling Monday by a superior court in Wake County, North Carolina means felons not serving time in prison may register and vote in North Carolina, NC Policy Watch reports:
A press release from the plaintiffs touted the decision as the state’s “largest expansion of voting rights in the state since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
By modifying a previous preliminary injunction that only granted the part of the request, judges in the Wake County Superior Court restored the voting rights of close to 56,000 disenfranchised individuals convicted of federal and state felonies, according to Dennis Gaddy, the executive director of the Community Success Initiative.
At a press conference, Gatty said the ruling could impact another 20,000 to 25,000 people who are released per year. It does not affect people who are currently incarcerated.
The ruling overturns a state law that prohibits voting by felons before they have completed all community supervision outside prison. Plaintiffs described the law dating from a post-Civil War amendment to the state constitution as “adopted for overtly racist reasons.”
African Americans represent 21.51% of North Carolina’s voting-age population, but 42.43% of those prohibited from voting while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision, states the plaintiff’s brief. Restoration of voting rights after that was automatic in North Carolina.
The ruling may yet face appeal.
The ruling “delivers on a promise of justice by the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P. a half century ago, that all people living in communities across the state deserve to have their voices heard in elections,” said Stanton Jones of the law firm Arnold & Porter, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And now, 50 years later, the voices of those 56,000 people will finally be heard.”
But State Senator Warren Daniel, the Republican chairman of the Senate’s elections committee, said the judges were ignoring a clause in the State Constitution that bars convicted felons from voting unless their rights are restored according to state law. “These judges may think they’re doing the right thing by rewriting laws as they see fit (without bothering to even explain their ruling),” he said in a statement. “But each one of these power grabs chips away at the notion that the people, through their legislature, make laws.”
That is 56,000 new voters, with tens of thousands of new ones with restored rights each year.
It bears reminding that Gov. Roy Cooper (D) won election in 2016 by 10,277 votes. State Attorney General Josh Stein (D) retained his position in November 2020 by 13,622 votes. NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley (D) lost reelection in 2020 by 401 votes. (Beasley is now vying for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Richard Burr.) Voter registration and voter turnout matter, don’t they?