The Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in a NAACP lawsuit challenging North Carolina election boards that the civil rights group says are purging voters from voter rolls, and thereby violating the National Voting Rights Act.
The filing came late Tuesday ahead of an emergency hearing slated for Wednesday. The NAACP alleges that at least three counties have violated federal procedures and purged voter rolls based on undeliverable mail. The process disproportionately targets blacks, the NAACP argues.
The NAACP argues that the election boards in Beaufort, Moore and Cumberland counties violated federal law that prohibits voter roll purges within 95 days before an election. North Carolina officials say the process is legal under state law, but the Justice Department agrees with the NAACP.
“As described, the purge program at issue here rested on a mass mailing and the silence of voters largely unaware of the potential injury to their voting rights,” the U.S. Justice Department said in its statement. “A perfunctory administrative proceeding to consider evidence produced by a mass mailing does not turn an otherwise prohibited systematic process into an ‘individualized’ removal.”
