Gurumurthy Kalyanaram reports on lawsuits and policies and in this brief particularly on the latest court ruling on voting provisions.
Several civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against a law passed by the North Carolina Legislature. In their lawsuit, the civil rights groups argued that elimination of easy ballot access provisions by the legislature will harm the voters in general, and the black voters even more so. The two issues in the complaint related to the elimination of same-day registration and out-of-precinct provisional voting.
In their ruling on the lawsuit in October 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a 2-1 ruling restored “same-day registration,” which allows North Carolina voters to register and cast ballots in single visits to locations for early voting. As reported by the Time, “The ruling also sets aside another part of the law and directs the state to count provisional ballots that are filed outside of voters’ home precincts.”
The lawyers for the State of North Carolina stated that the State intends to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which might review the matter on an expedited basis because of the impending elections in North Carolina. The State has already sent out more than four million voters guides describing laws that the appellate court’s decision would invalidate. Early voting begins in North Carolina on Oct. 23.
There are many complaints and challenged to widespread alterations to state voting laws. For example, there is a resolution pending in a Federal District Court in Texas. In Wisconsin, the Courts have permitted the state’s voter ID law to take effect, although critics may soon file a lawsuit in US Supreme Court. Very recently, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, blocked an appellate court’s decision that would have restored a week of early voting in Ohio.
Please refer to other articles by Gurumurthy Kalyanaram on lawsuit and policies on his website: www.gurumurthykalyanaram.com/about.html
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