dimensionallava
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US courts recently struck down racist voter suppression laws in 4 states. Dealing yet another blow to the Republican party.
US courts strike down ?Voter ID? laws in four states - World Socialist Web Site
Recent court rulings concerning attacks on the right to vote in several states—North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas and North Dakota—underscore the deeply anti-democratic character of “Voter ID” laws, as well as the significance of the 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the US Supreme Court.
The Republican campaign against alleged vote fraud is itself a fraud, a means of blocking access to the polls on the part of voters—mainly minorities and youth—likely to vote Democratic. Impersonation of a voter is both exceedingly rare and highly inefficient as a means to steal an election. The much more likely methods of election rigging, through stuffing ballot boxes or manipulation of software in the tabulation of votes, are entirely unaffected by voter ID laws.
On July 29, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down key provisions of a North Carolina ballot access law that targeted African Americans and working class voters, in the words of the court ruling, “with almost surgical precision.”
The Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly prepared the law in question, SL 2013-381, on the day after the US Supreme Court handed down the reactionary ruling in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, that struck down the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The timing of the bill underscores its anti-democratic intent, and confirms the prediction of the World Socialist Web Site that the emasculation of the Voting Rights Act would encourage attacks on the right to vote.
According to the opinion by Judge Diana Motz, the Republican legislators behind SL 2013-381 requested data about the state voting practices and their use by race. Based on the data, the General Assembly prepared to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters, using race as a predictor of voter intent. (The court found that in North Carolina, race was a more accurate predictor of voter intent than even voting in a party’s primary). The new law restricted early voting, imposed photo ID requirements, ended same-day registration and preregistration for minors, and ended out-of-district provisional voting.
“Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist,” the opinion stated.
US courts strike down ?Voter ID? laws in four states - World Socialist Web Site