Sue til Blue: All Democrat Judicial Panel Blocks Voter ID

RALEIGH – No matter that dozens of other states operate, without issue, under voter ID requirements; no matter that a majority of North Carolina voted to amend our state constitution to require photo identification for voters; no matter that a bipartisan group of state lawmakers bent over backwards to make as many reasonable allowances as possible to have a implementation law with the broadest support; no,  none of it matters, because a panel of liberal judges has now issued a diktat indefinitely blocking voter ID from being implemented in the Old North State.

The judicial decree came from the N.C. Court of Appeals panel, consisting of three Democrat judges, and commands that voter ID will not be used until after a full trial on the merits of a challenge to North Carolina’s voter ID law in state court – if at all. A lower court had ruled that the Democrat challengers to voter ID didn’t come close to presenting the evidence of harm required to issue an injunction blocking the law’s implementation.

The three stooges: Judges Toby Hampson, John Arrowood, and Allegra Collins. Writing the 45 page decision,  Judge Hampson posited, in legalese, that the law is — you guessed it –racist.

“While it may be true that African-American voters without a qualifying ID could still be able to vote by using the reasonable-impediment provision, this fact does not necessarily fully eliminate the disproportionate impact on African-American voters resulting from both S.B. 824’s voter-ID provisions and the reasonable-impediment provision. As Plaintiffs have shown, the voter-ID provisions likely will have a negative impact on African Americans because they lack acceptable IDs at a greater rate than white voters. Accordingly, it follows African-American voters will also then have to rely on the reasonable-impediment provision more frequently than white voters. Although the reasonable-impediment provision casts a wide net in defining the types of reasonable impediments that qualify under the law, which Defendants contend will result in almost every reason for lacking an acceptable ID to constitute a reasonable impediment, a voter using this provision must still undertake the additional task of filling out the reasonable-impediment form and submitting an affidavit verifying its veracity to cast a provisional ballot, which is subject to rejection if the county board believes the voter’s affidavit and reasonable impediment are false. Although Defendants assert these additional steps to vote are not overly burdensome,the use of the reasonable-impediment provision is still one more obstacle to voting, which Plaintiffs have shown will be an obstacle that African Americans will have to overcome at a rate higher than white voters, given their disproportionately lower rates of possessing qualifying IDs. Accordingly, even though at this stage the evidence shows it is “not [an] overwhelming impact,” the reasonable-impediment provision nevertheless suffices as a “[s]howing [of] disproportionate impact,” establishing another circumstance evidencing discriminatory intent. […]”

In short, the Democrat judges hold this law is racist because African-Americans without a valid ID will have to fill out a form saying that they have no ID, and sign an affidavit, before submitting a provisional ballot. They hold that this will fall on African-American voters at a higher rate than whites. What they don’t present as justification, is any evidence whatsoever that voter ID laws around the country have actually resulted in such a disproportionate impact.

This is a judiciary, or a subset of the judiciary, that seems drunk on power to usurp the authority of the state’s legislative branch and the ultimate authority of ‘we the people.; Serving them the drinks, of course, are Leftists that have been waging a years long Sue til Blue campaign on everything from voter ID, to redistricting, to the Board of Elections itself.

When the legislature’s authority to pass and implement such an election law is so clear; when the law is crafted with such bipartisan care as to accommodate literally everyone who may not have an ID; when the people themselves have voted to ADD THE REQUIREMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION; and, when a panel of judges overrules them all, at what point does the state legislature tell the court to take a hike? It’s a good question, and likely one lawmakers are asking themselves now.

Read the rest of the tortured reasoning in the panel’s decision here.