Federal court to hear challenge to North Carolina election laws

[July 13, 2015]  WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - The Federal court will hear a challenge to North Carolina's election laws on Monday that claims Republican-backed voting restrictions discriminate against black and latino voters who tend to favor Democrats.

Voting rights groups, backed by the U.S. Department of Justice, will assert that 2013 changes to election laws by the Republican-led state legislature were unlawful. Republican says the changes were designed to prevent voter fraud.

"The outcome of this historic case in North Carolina will have an impact on voting rights across the nation," according to North Carolina's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which is organizing a march in Winston-Salem on Monday afternoon.

The case is being brought by NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the Department of Justice.

The 2013 election laws require voters to show certain forms of photo identification to cast a ballot, as well as other provisions.

Also at issue is a one week reduction in early voting, the elimination of pre-registration for 16 and 17 year-olds and the barring of same-day voter registration and provisional voting for voters casting ballots outside their normal precincts.

The NAACP noted that African Americans comprise 22 percent of North Carolina voters but made up 41 percent of voters who used same-day registration, and cast out-of-precinct ballots at twice the rate of white voters.

"This is our Selma," the NAACP said in a web posting announcing Monday's march, referring to the famous attack on civil rights marchers in Alabama in March 1965, five months before the Voting Rights Act became law.

North Carolina’s changes to its election laws came after a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminated a key portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that banned voter discrimination.

The Supreme Court ruling ended a requirement that North Carolina, along with other states with histories of discrimination, obtain federal approval for voting rule changes affecting minorities.

Court challenges have also been mounted recently in Texas and Florida over similar Republican-led voting restrictions.

In October, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that parts of the 2013 law should be provisionally blocked while litigation continues.

(The case 1:13CV658; North Carolina NAACP, et al v. Patrick Lloyd McCrory, Governor of North Carolina)

(Writing by David Adams; Editing by Michael Perry)

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