A court ruling last week minces no words in accusing North Carolina lawmakers of conspiring to disenfranchise the state's African Americans. But still Governor McCrory says he'll defend that discriminatory Voter ID law he signed in 2013.
The Washington Post says the decision came from a three-judge “panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit" and was unanimous. Judges noted that the ID law allows potential voters to use government-issued drivers licenses as identification, but it disqualifies “government-issued public assistance cards-used disproportionately by minorities in the state." It also eliminates a week of early voting days African American tend to make use of.
Most damning is the panel's finding that, first, the NC legislature gathered data “on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices,” and then used that data to enact "legislation that restricted voting and registration" in several ways which "disproportionately affected African Americans.”
The court ruling sums up the ID law as targeting “African Americans with almost surgical precision,” adding that “asserted justifications” - claims of voter fraud - “cannot and do not conceal the State’s true motivation.” Supporting that conclusion, WP says research shows that “reports of voter fraud are roughly as common as reports of alien abduction."
Governor McCrory has run out of excuses to support this clearly discriminatory law. Sign this petition to insist McCrory stop fighting voting rights in NC!
Governor McCrory:
As a North Carolinian who has researched and written about the cruel injustices committed against people of color who tried to exercise their right to vote during Jim Crow rule in our state, I am writing to demand that you not take us back to that shameful era by continuing to defend the recent Voter ID law you signed in 2013.
[Your Comments]
According to the Washington Post, in its report on the scathing ruling against NC's Voter ID law, submitted by the federal court in Richmond, the panel stated "that the primary purpose of North Carolina's [legislature] wasn't to stop voter fraud, but rather to disenfranchise minority voters. The judges found that the provisions "target African Americans with almost surgical precision."
WP also provided links to "7 papers, 4 government inquiries, 2 news investigations and 1 court ruling proving voter fraud is mostly a myth."
Not only are the excuses for enacting this law spurious, at best, but they do not justify the serious violations of constitutional rights and other consequences that would come from its implementation.
I, the undersigned, fully agree with the federal court's decision in striking down this shamefully discriminatory law and demand that you, my governor, stop this fight against voting rights in my state.
Thanks for your time.
[Your Name]
