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Judicial Watch and Allied Educational Foundation File Amici Curiae Brief with Supreme Court Supporting North Carolina Voter ID
North Carolina Election Integrity Law Boosted Minority Turnout

Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172
 
WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch announced it has joined with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in filing an amici curiae brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of the State of North Carolina's cert petition concerning its voter ID and other election integrity laws (State of North Carolina, et al. v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, et al. (No. 16-833)).

The case concerns North Carolina's adoption in 2013 of common-sense election integrity measures requiring voter ID, eliminating "same-day" voter registration, reducing the early voting period, and prohibiting voters from casting provisional ballots outside of their voting precincts. The Obama Justice Department and other groups represented by the NAACP and the League of Women Voters filed suit, alleging this law was racially discriminatory against black voters in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act ("VRA").

The Judicial Watch/AEF brief was filed in support of the petition for certiorari filed by North Carolina asking the Supreme Court to accept the case for consideration in order to overturn the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which struck down a 2013 North Carolina election-integrity law. The most recent appeals court ruling reversed the lower court ruling that found the election integrity measures lawful.

Judicial Watch and AEF filed amici curiae briefs at five earlier stages of this litigation, most recently supporting the North Carolina election integrity laws in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and supporting North Carolina's request to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the appeals court ruling. Judicial Watch and AEF also filed amici briefs in this lawsuit in 2014 at the district court, in 2014 at the Fourth Circuit, and again at the Supreme Court in 2015.

Judicial Watch and AEF argue that the Fourth Circuit failed to prove a discriminatory effect that would show "that African American registration and turnout, which ought to be the true measures of electoral participation and power" was diminished by any of the challenged voting procedures.

    Amici are principally concerned that the Fourth Circuit's decision will subject state laws regarding electoral procedures to unremitting attacks on the grounds that one or another statistical analyses shows a disproportionate racial use of such procedures, even where this has no effect on the true electoral power of racial groups – indeed, perversely, even where this effect is positive. The consequences of this new electoral dynamic, to the extent that they can be foreseen, are all bad. As a practical matter, every change to state electoral law will be subject to a serious and viable challenge. State electoral law will become largely a federal matter, to be determined and approved in federal court. Even more disturbing, because this massive distortion of our political system relies on the wrong evidence of electoral harm, it ultimately may injure the minority voters it was meant to help.

MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-allied-educational-foundation-file-amici-curiae-brief-supreme-court-supporting-north-carolina-voter-id