Republican efforts to block certain North Carolina voters from participating in this year's elections have been thwarted for now by federal and state courts.
The North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee had hoped to get approximately 225,000 registered voters removed from the state's rolls, or at least require them to cast provisional ballots. A ruling by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals this week made their quest look even less likely to succeed.
The case started in state court, but the North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Democratic National Committee succeeded in getting the matter moved to federal court.
A Trump-appointed federal district court judge, Richard Myers II, had dismissed one of the GOP claims but remanded a remaining constitutional claim back to state court for further consideration. The Fourth Circuit overruled and sent it back to Myers.
In their original complaint, filed in late August, the NCGOP and RNC argued the state elections board violated federal law and the state constitution by failing to remove 225,000 voters who had registered with a flawed form.
The outdated form requested — but did not mandate — a registrant provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, information required under federal law. The state elections board has since updated the registration forms.
As to the registrations in question, the elections board determined the voters could not be removed from the rolls so close to this year's election, as prohibited by federal law. Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, there's a 90-day "quiet period" before elections during which voters may not be removed from rolls.
Moreover, the elections board said voters would have to provide such identifying information when, for example, requesting an absentee ballot, and they must provide acceptable forms of photo ID when voting by mail or in person.
The GOP plaintiffs also claimed the state elections board violated the North Carolina Constitution's equal rights protections by not either removing the 225,000 registered voters, or by requiring them to vote this year with provisional ballots.
Meanwhile, a North Carolina appeals court panel dismissed a Republican lawsuit targeting absentee ballots submitted by eligible overseas voters who never lived in the state.
The lawsuit is part of a legal strategy devised by the RNC and deployed in other battleground states.
