Felon Voting Case Faces GOP NC Supreme Court Feb. 2, 2023
By Cash Michaels
Last month, former felons were allowed to vote in the November 2022 elections by the then Democrat-led NC Supreme Court, until the full case of felon voting could be argued before the High Court.
Well, that time has come.
The new 5-2 Republican-led state Supreme Court has scheduled February 2, 2023, for arguments in the Community Success Initiative v. Moore felon voting case to be heard.
The concern from those in the ex-felon community is that Republicans have already expressed their opposition to allowing those with felony records who are on probation, parole or post- release supervision to cast ballots in elections, positing that it is a violation of state law.
A 1973 law, to be exact, originally passed by a Democrat-majority NC General Assembly that mandated that all felony offenders must finish all requirements of their former imprisonment before earning the right to retain full citizenship rights, including voting.
Democrats today argue that that 1973 law was based on racially discriminatory laws that prevented former slaves from voting over a hundred years earlier. Thus, because racial discrimination against blacks is illegal today, then any law based accordingly must also be unconstitutional.
But Republicans countered that the rules mandating that former felons complete all requirements owed the state actually predate Blacks getting the right to vote, so thus have nothing to do with racial discrimination. The GOP maintains that the 1973 law is still validate and should be upheld.
“The North Carolina Constitution provides that ‘…no person adjudged guilty of a felony … shall be permitted to vote unless that person shall be first restored to the rights of citizenship in the manner prescribed by law,’” Republican legislative leaders maintained in their previous court arguments.
“Accepting Plaintiffs’….arguments …would require this Court to find that felons have a fundamental right to vote, that elections without them are not ‘free,’ and that insisting felons pay their debt to society before rejoining the electorate is the equivalent of a poll-tax or property qualification.
No such findings are possible because the North Carolina Constitution itself disenfranchises felons, subject to any re-enfranchisement law the General Assembly may in its discretion enact,” Republican leaders say.
During their majority term, NC Supreme Court Democratic justices sent signals that they believed that the 1973 law should be trashed, and the over 56,000 former felons across North Carolina deserved to have all of their citizenship rights returned to them immediately after completing their terms of punishment.
The 4-3 Democrat-led High Court was believed to be preparing the felon voting case by this month, assuming that it might retain its majority during the November 2022 midterm elections. In October, it rejected a fast-track request from plaintiffs, however.
But during the elections, Democrats lost two seats on the state Supreme Court, giving Republicans a 5-2 advantage starting January 31st.
That meant Democrats only had time to fast-track at least two other cases - voter I.D. and restricting.
That left the felon voting case to be scheduled for the new term of the new Republican-led state Supreme Court.
Given what Republican legislative leaders have said about the case already accounts for why most observers believe that the 1973 law should prevail, and former felons be denied their voting rights until after they’ve completed all their post-release requirements.
The felon voting case is among the first to be argued before the new state Supreme Court, starting February 2nd.
