Re “The Decline of North Carolina” (editorial, July 10):
The attack on voting rights in North Carolina is a shameful attempt by the state’s politicians to curtail access to the ballot, in ways devised particularly to discourage voting by African-Americans.
In addition to requiring voter ID and cutting early and Sunday voting, North Carolina is poised to end same-day registration, which allows eligible voters to register or correct problems with their registration at the same time they vote.
After it adopted the program in 2007, North Carolina’s voter participation rate rose 8 percent — the largest increase in voter participation in the country in 2008. African-Americans were especially likely to use same-day registration. More than 40 percent of the voters who used it in 2012 were African-American, although only 20 percent of the state’s voting age population is African-American.
Coupled with the other voting restrictions, the intent of North Carolina politicians to obstruct voting by African-Americans is transparent.
The citizens of North Carolina deserve better than this antidemocratic attack.
