Thousands of felons behind bars and on probation became eligible Wednesday to vote in North Carolina after a judicial panel struck down a 1973 law.
The judges in March ruled the law was discriminatory and violated the equal protection and free-election clauses of the state constitution after plaintiffs cited it as a vestige of Reconstruction-era efforts to suppress Black votes.
“The legislature cannot purge through the mere passage of time an impermissibly racially discriminatory intent. The legislature’s decision in the 1970s to preserve the law’s denial of the franchise to people living in the community was itself independently motivated by racism,” Judge Lisa Bell and Judge Keith Gregory said in the panel’s decision.