DURHAM, N.C. (Oct. 24, 2024)— The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and two voters are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to stop a dangerous attempt to purge a quarter of a million registered voters from North Carolina’s voter lists just weeks before the November election.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), and Mayer Brown filed an amicus brief in Republican National Committee v. North Carolina State Board of Elections on behalf of the NC NAACP, as well as Sailor Jones and Bertha Leverette, two voters targeted by the Republican National Committee and North Carolina GOP’s requested purge.
The brief details how the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) forbids all of the Republican National Committee’s requested relief and requires the complete dismissal of the lawsuit. Importantly, the NVRA prohibits systematic voter purges anytime in the 90 days before a federal election.
“There is a good reason for preventing systematic removal programs within 90 days of a federal election,” the amicus states, as that is when “the risk of disfranchising eligible voters is the greatest.”
The NC NAACP, along with Jones and Leverette, filed the brief in order to ensure that North Carolina voters receive the full range of federal voting rights protections as Congress intended, and so that the individuals targeted by this purge attempt are not disenfranchised — who, based on public data, are disproportionately Black voters.
“The Fourth Circuit needs to block the RNC and NC GOP’s attempt to suppress votes in North Carolina,” said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, President of the NC NAACP. “This lawsuit is a calculated effort to quickly purge our voter list, hiding behind false claims about illegal ballots to push an anti-immigrant, racist agenda. We won’t let this attack on the rights of Black and Brown voters go unanswered.”
“While North Carolinians are turning out in record numbers to vote early, the RNC and NC GOP are focused on undermining our freedoms,” said Sailor Jones, one of the individual voters and Associate Director of Common Cause North Carolina. “The Fourth Circuit must stop this dangerous conspiracy theory that could silence the voices of 250,000 voters who did nothing wrong.”
“The NC GOP waited months to attempt this purge, waiting until we were in the heat of the election to create as much fear and confusion as possible,” said Bertha Leverette, one of the individual voters. “Without a single piece of evidence that myself or any of the other voters on their hit list are actually ineligible to vote, the plaintiffs are trying to cut us out of our nation’s election. The Court cannot let this happen.”
Nearly a quarter of 1 million North Carolinians’ votes hang in the balance. Federal laws like the NVRA are designed to prevent what is at the heart of this case–late-stage attempts to prevent voters from participating in the political process,” said Jennifer Nwachukwu, Senior Counsel with the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“This case ignores the work of the State Board to verify these voter registrations, the robust protections of federal law, and the simple fact that any supposed missing voter information is due to administrative changes that are completely out of the control of the impacted voters,” said Jeff Loperfido, Chief Counsel for Voting Rights at SCSJ. “The plaintiffs haven’t shown, or even tried to show, that a single voter is actually ineligible. Pushing this baseless case fuels the fire for those determined to dispute valid election results they don’t like.”
Individuals in North Carolina who have any questions or issues while voting can call the NC Election Protection Hotline at (888) OUR-VOTE to get voting help from a trained volunteer. Individuals outside of North Carolina can call the national Election Protection Hotline at (866) OUR-VOTE.
