Earlier this year the North Carolina Republican-led legislature proposed some new voter suppression laws that were so far out there no one expected them to become law, mainly because the Justice Department would step in under the laws of the existing Voter Rights Act and strike it down. Well, along came the Supreme Court which effectively struck down the VRA and suddenly all this craziness becomes not only plausible but likely.
Rachel Maddow covers it, while Ari Berman at The Nation goes into more of the grotesque details:
This week, the North Carolina legislature will almost certainly pass a strict new voter ID law that could disenfranchise 318,000 registered voters who don’t have the narrow forms of accepted state-issued ID.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the bill has since been amended by Republicans to include a slew of appalling voter suppression measures. They include cutting a week of early voting, ending same-day registration during the early voting period and making it easier for vigilante poll-watchers to challenge eligible voters.
