North Carolina voters are not safe yet

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing North Carolina over its alleged failure to maintain accurate voter lists as required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The Justice Department claims that the state used a voter registration form that does not require a voter to provide a driver’s license or last four digits of a social security number in violation of federal law. As a result, the government claims a number of voters were registered without proper identification information, in violation of HAVA. It claims the state has failed to address these violations in a timely manner, and seeks a court order to remedy any inaccuracies on the voter rolls.

  Democracy Docket

By knocking those voters off the rolls.

And if that's not enough...

The North Carolina Supreme Court has allowed a controversial Republican-backed law — which strips the Democratic governor of power over state election administration and hands it to the Republican state auditor — to take effect.

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The law at issue transfers power to appoint members of the State Board of Elections from the governor to State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican. The board controls how elections are run across North Carolina.

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The ruling comes even after a lower court found the law “unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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Justice Anita Earls issued a scathing dissent, warning the decision “charts an entirely new allocation of state government power in service of partisan ends.”

“If the voters of North Carolina wanted a Republican official to control the State Board of Elections, they could have elected a Republican Governor,” Earls wrote. “They did not.”

Justice Allison Riggs also dissented, slamming the Court for abandoning a century of precedent.

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Gov. Josh Stein then asked the Supreme Court to block the appeals court ruling. But the high court ruled 5-2, along party lines, that Stein had failed to show the appeals court abused its discretion.

Still, the Supreme Court didn’t rule on the law’s constitutionality, and its ruling doesn’t end the litigation. The case remains with the appeals court to decide.

  Democracy Docket