NC Passes Voter Suppression Measures as DOJ Moves to Protect Voters in TX

NC Passes Voter Suppression Measures as DOJ Moves to Protect Voters in TX

The North Carolina legislature voted Thursday to approve the most restrictive voter suppression measures in the country, making it the first state to pass new laws after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. But the move comes the same day that the Department of Justice announced plans to use other means to protect voting rights.

As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the North Carolina bill will not only enact strict voter ID requirements that threaten to disenfranchise 318,000 registered voters, but authorize voter vigilantes, end election day registration (used by 155,000 voters last November), cut early voting (used by 56% of the electorate), make it harder to register, and even create paranoid protections against "zombie voters." It also raises campaign contribution limits and kills public financing for judicial elections.