STATE SEN. DAN BLUE
GOP INTRODUCES “ELECTION
DAY INTEGRITY ACT” AMID
DEMOCRAT PROTESTS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Now that Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto pen has been nullified, and the state Supreme Court has a 5-2 GOP majority, Republican legislative leaders are going nonstop with a political agenda they feel will entrench North Carolina for decades to come.
With literally nothing in the short term to stop them, Republicans are boldly pushing forward on significant changes to education, abortion rights and now, election reform.
For the past two weeks, various media outlets have been reporting, and in some cases, even warning, about Senate Bill 747, otherwise known as “Election Law Changes.”
“Distilled to its essence, the strategy is to make it harder for people who are expected to vote for progressive candidates to cast their vote,” writes Rob Schofield of NC Newsline about the bill.
Republicans counter that they are simply attempting to “… strengthen election laws [and] increase confidence in election administration.”
A look at some of SB747’s language tells the story.
All mail-in ballots will be required to be received by their respective county boards of elections no later than 7:30 p.m. on election day, or until polls are closed, be it a primary or general election. Failure to do so disqualifies that ballot from being counted.
This would do away with the current three-day grace period for mail-in ballots to arrive at county elections offices that are postmarked by that election day, adopted by the NC General Assembly in 2009 to guard against unforeseen delays in mail delivery.
Critics say if an elderly or afflicted voter can’t mail or get their ballot to their county elections office before or by election day, their otherwise valid vote will not be counted. That election day change could have a chilling effect on mail-in voters.
"[W]hat will these Republican legislators force election workers to do with that ballot if it arrives the day after election day? Throw it in the trash?,” opined Sen. Natasha Marcus (D-Mecklenburg). “It’s not trash. It’s a vote, and it should count.”
New One Stop Early Voters are also facing an additional hurdle to their vote being counted.
According to the proposed SB747, “…an individual who is qualified to register to vote may register in person and then vote at a one-stop voting site in the individual's county of residence during the period for one-stop voting. However, the individual shall vote by provisional ballot...." meaning that their vote may or may not be counted and that provisional ballot will not count until the name and address of the One-Stop voter is verified by government document or first-class mail “…before the close of polls on Election Day.
Presently all a prospective One Stop Early voter who has to same-day register is bring some form of official identification proving their name and address (a bill or bank notice) with them, and their ballot is automatically counted as valid on election day. No further verification needed.
There are several other changes to existing N.C. election laws that are proposed in SB747 as it makes its way through committees and to the floor at press time. But that isn’t stopping Democrats and critics from throwing everything but the rhetoric kitchen sink in its way to stop its progress.
“[R]epublicans at least come closer to admitting their overarching goal — denying the electoral rights of their enemies,” wrote columnist Law Professor Gene Nichol of UNC School of Law.
“Most of the massive alterations of North Carolina voting law enacted by Republican lawmakers over the last dozen years have been, the courts have explained, justified by lies,” Prof. Nichol continued. “The “monster voter ID” law of 2013 was said to be aimed at voter fraud and ballot accuracy. But judges found that legislators “could not conceal the state’s true motivation” — the desire to handicap Black voters.”
Republicans denied such allegations, but when Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who worked for former Pres. Donald Trump in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, was reported by WRAL-TV to have allegedly been involved in the drafting of SB747, it made GOP denials of their true intent that much harder for critics to swallow.
“This is just a raw effort to just dissuade people from voting,” declared Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue.
But this isn’t the end of it, Democrat Blue and others warn. Expect the new Republican legislative and congressional redistricting maps, due in a few weeks, to also be designed to maintain the NCGOP electoral advantage for many elections to come.
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U.S. HIGH COURT ALABAMA
REDISTRICTING RULING HOLDS
HOPE FOR NORTH CAROLINA
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Rarely does news about Alabama put smiles on the faces of Black North Carolinians, especially when it involves the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court. But last week was a definite exception.
By a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that Alabama’s Republican legislators must redraw the state’s voting districts so that Black voters are able to elect their own congressional representative. Instead of further diluting the 1965 Voting Rights Act, two conservative justices, Republican Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined the court’s liberal justices in finding that Alabama violated federal civil rights law by only drawing one majority-Black voting district out of seven statewide, even though African-Americans make up 27% of the state’s population.
That ruling has North Carolina political experts paying attention, particularly as it relates to the upcoming 2024 elections.
“Today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court is a victory for American democracy and voters everywhere,” said Bob Phillips, Executive Director of the non-partisan Common Cause North Carolina. “This decision should serve as a clear warning to North Carolina politicians that racist gerrymandering and attacks on voting rights will not stand.”
“Current anti-voter proposals in the North Carolina legislature – including NC Senate Bill 747 – would disproportionately harm people of color, “ Phillips continued. “And legislators are preparing for yet another round of redistricting that so often has targeted Black and brown voters through extreme gerrymandering.”
Phillips concluded, “North Carolina politicians should take note of today’s ruling and reject attempts to undermine voting rights. We must protect everyone’s freedom to vote.”
A lower federal court had ruled that Black voters in Alabama had been shortchanged by their GOP legislators, so having the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court uphold the ruling was a surprise, a surprise that a Raleigh News & Observer editorial warned North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers to pay attention to when they redraw congressional voting districts in a few weeks.
“The court’s decision in Allen v. Milligan may limit how much North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers can dilute Black – read Democratic – voting power when they draw new districts for the 2024 election,” the N&O said.
The ruling “makes it likely that Republican state legislators will not attempt to draw new maps aimed at electing an 11-3 GOP majority in North Carolina’s [congressional] House seats.”
“This ruling is a game changer for the overall picture in the (U.S.) House because it could affect what Republicans will try to do in North Carolina,” said David Wasserman, senior editor of The Cook Political Report.
In effect, while the Republican - led NC General Assembly is still free to redraw legislative voting districts per partisan gerrymandering, the Alabama decision reinforces the illegality of racial gerrymandering, thus closing what had been earlier seen as a possible loophole to redistricting if the Supreme Court had ruled otherwise.
The surprise ruling also means that if Republicans in Congress were hoping to extend their majority in the U.S. House, they'll now have a harder time doing so.
So it remains to be seen how the GOP - led NC legislature interprets what leeway it now has in redrawing voting districts for 2024.
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