The NAACP in North Carolina filed a lawsuit earlier this week demanding county election officials stop canceling voter registrations in at least three counties. The officials being taken to task deemed over 100 registrations as void after mailings they sent to those addresses returned as undeliverable. The NAACP claimed their canceling those registrations was in violation of the National Voting Registration Act and that it was a GOP effort to suppress the minority vote.
The DOJ sided with the NAACP earlier this week, agreeing that the Tar Heel State election officials had violated NVRA. The agency said it will be sending election monitors to the counties in question to prevent any supposed foul play. On Friday, the NAACP got more favorable news from a federal judge who issued a preliminary injunction to stop election officials from canceling registrations.
“[T]here is little question that the County Boards’ process of allowing third parties to challenge hundreds and, in Cumberland County, thousands of voters within 90 days before the 2016 General Election constitutes the type of “systematic” removal prohibited by the [National Voter Registration Act],” said U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs.
The NAACP is pleased with the initial decision.
“This emergency injunction will help make sure not a single voters’ voice is unlawfully taken away,” said the Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “The NAACP is defending rights of all North Carolinians to participate in this election and we will not back down and allow this suppression to continue. This is our Selma.”