- North Carolina «
Press Release from North Carolina NAACP
NC
NAACP
November 04, 2016
Federal Judge Issues Order Blocking Mass Purge of Voters from NC Rolls
Ruling Comes in NAACP Suit Charging
State
Illegally Suppressed Right to Vote of Thousands of Black Residents
In At Least Three
Counties, Voters
Declared Ineligible Following Bogus Change-in-Residence Claims;
Violates National Voting Registration Act
DURHAM—A federal judge Thursday issued a
restraining order blocking state and county boards of elections from
illegally canceling the registrations of thousands of voters who are
being targeted in a coordinated effort right out of the GOP playbook to
suppress the black vote in the state.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit
filed Monday by the North Carolina NAACP, which charged that
in Beaufort, Moore and Cumberland counties, boards of elections have
cancelled registrations of thousands of voters solely on the basis of a
challenge process triggered by individuals who produced single mailings
returned as undeliverable, purporting to show a change in
residence—without written confirmation from the affected voters or
compliance with federal voter registration laws.
“There is little question that the County Boards’ process
of allowing third parties to challenge hundreds and, in Cumberland
County, thousands of voters within 90 days before the 2016
General Election constitutes the type of “systematic” removal
prohibited by the National Voter Registration Act,” U.S. District Judge
Loretta C. Biggs wrote.
Facts produced in the lawsuit confirmed that several
other counties have likely committed similar illegal purges.
“This emergency injunction will help make sure not a
single voters’ voice is unlawfully taken away,” said the Rev.
William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “The NAACP is
defending rights of all North Carolinians to participate in this
election and we will not back down and allow this suppression to
continue. This is our Selma.”
Earlier Friday, President Obama read from a letter
from one of the plaintiffs, 100-year-old Grace
Bell
Hardison, whose voter registration had been challenged. And
late Tuesday night, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a
statement of interest supporting the North Carolina NAACP’s argument
that the mass purging of voters from the rolls in the state is a
violation of the National Voter Registration Act.
In its statement, the DOJ writes, “the purge program at
issue here rested on a mass mailing and the silence of voters
largely unaware of the potential injury to their voting rights. A
perfunctory administrative proceeding to consider evidence produced
by a mass mailing does not turn an otherwise prohibited systematic
process into an ‘individualized’ removal.”
In many cases, voters purged by the state still reside at
the addresses where they are registered to vote, or have moved within
the county and remain eligible to vote there, according to the
complaint, filed Monday in federal court in the Middle
District of North Carolina.
Nonetheless, a single item of returned mail, sent via a
coordinated campaign led by individuals with GOP ties, has resulted in
thousands of voters’ removal from the rolls. The mass removals
violate the National Voting Registration Act, which limits states’
authority to cancel voter registrations based on change in residence,
and other federal laws.
The NVRA permits states to cancel registrations only if a
voter either confirms the residence change in writing or is given a
notice and then fails to respond or vote for two federal election
cycles. It also prohibits all systemic voter removal
programs within 90 days of a federal election, but the state
has canceled thousands of registrations in the final weeks before
Election Day.
Take, for example, James Edward Arthur Sr., a lifelong
resident of Beaufort County, where at least 138 voters have been
challenged in recent weeks. Mr. Arthur, who is African American, became
a registered voter in Beaufort County in November 2011, has voted in at
least 14 elections since then, and had planned to vote in the
upcoming Nov. 8 election. But his registration was cancelled
by the Beaufort County Board of Elections on or after Oct. 24, 2016, as
a result of a third-party challenge based solely on undeliverable mass
mailings that led to a challenge.
“I did not receive notice from the State or Beaufort
County that my voter registration had been challenged, or that a
hearing had been set to determine whether I would remain on the State’s
list of eligible voters,” said Mr. Arthur, who is a plaintiff
in the suit. “If I knew my right to vote was in jeopardy, I would do
whatever I could to protect it. I want and plan to vote in the upcoming
election, but I am concerned that since my registration has been
canceled I will not be able to cast a ballot or it will not be counted.”
Like Mr. Arthur, many of these voters simply moved to
another residence within Beaufort County, and many others had not
changed their residence at all, but nonetheless sometimes do not
receive mail for various reasons. In Mr. Arthur’s case, he moved
to a nursing home due to a leg injury, but remained in Beaufort
County.
The en masse voter challenges in Beaufort
County have disproportionately targeted African American voters, who
comprise only 25.9% of the Beaufort County population, but account for
more than 65% (91 of 138) of the challenges.
Among those is Grace Bell Hardison, a 100-year-old
African American woman from Beaufort County who has voted regularly for
24 straight years. Ms. Hardison, whose registration was upheld
following outcry when her story was publicized and supported by the NC
NAACP, is also among the plaintiffs in the suit.
Similar practices have occurred in Cumberland County,
where 3,951 registrations were challenged by a single individual as a
result of returned mail from mass mailings. The bulk challenges are
also taking place in Moore County, where a single individual
challenger, Tea Party activist N. Carol Wheeldon, submitted forms in
July 2016 challenging approximately 400 registered voters. In
Moore County, it appears the sole basis for all of these challenges was
undelivered, returned letters from a mass mailing, which Ms. Wheeldon
attached to her challenge forms in support of her claim that “the
person is not a resident of the precinct in which the person is
registered.” The letters used in Ms. Wheeldon’s mailing were
expressly marked “DO NOT FORWARD.”
Wheeldon is a member of the Moore County Tea Party
and, according
to
the
Nation, “has worked closely with the right-wing Voter
Integrity
Project, which has aggressively pushed discredited claims
of
voter
fraud.”
“The voter purges have a long history of being
racially-motivated and terribly inaccurate," said Penda Hair, an
attorney for the North Carolina NAACP. “It’s a timeworn GOP strategy to
suppress the black vote that is being recycled in the run-up to
Election Day.”