Study: North Carolina voting law proves to disenfranchise black voters
According to a Dartmouth University study, North Carolina’s recent changes to the state’s voting laws will disproportionately affect black voters.
North Carolina was once included in the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that states and other jurisdictions with a history of racism in voting submit changes to their voting laws to the Justice Department for approval. But a Supreme Court ruling no longer requires states to do so.
Specifically, we find that in presidential elections the state’s black early voters have traditionally cast their ballots disproportionately often in the first week of early voting, a week eliminated by VIVA; that blacks disproportionately have registered to vote during North Carolina’s early voting period and in the run-up to Election Day, something now prohibited by VIVA; that VIVA’s photo identification provision falls disproportionately on registered blacks in North Carolina; that the special identification dispensation for North Carolina voters who are at least 70 years old disproportionately benefits white voters; and, that prior to the implementation of VIVA young blacks were disproportionately more likely than whites to avail themselves of the opportunity to preregister to vote.
Read more at Dartmouth College
Changes to the law includes: shortening the time for early voting, requiring a photo ID, the elimination of same-day voter registration and limiting pre-registration for teens to those who will be of voting age on Election Day.
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