Allowing political party leaders or other private citizens to have people removed from the list of registered voters would move North Carolina “away from a democratic form of government,” a judge ruled in shooting down the Republican Party’s request.
The Republican Party has failed in its attempt to remove almost a quarter of a million North Carolina voters from the list of registered voters for this year’s elections. A federal judge shot down the party’s request Thursday, the same day early voting began.
The GOP had sought to purge about 225,000 voters, based on what they say are flaws in the voter registration system.
The lawsuit was based on two legal claims. Judge Richard Myers II, the chief district court judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina and an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, ruled against one claim and declined to rule on the other.
He said there’s no reason to believe that either judges or private citizens, including political party leaders, have any right to throw people off the voter rolls in North Carolina. State law explicitly gives that duty to elections officials — who months ago investigated allegations connected to the lawsuit and found nothing.
A ruling in favor of the GOP’s arguments, Myers concluded, could harm American democracy: It “would significantly alter the allocation of power … away from a democratic form of government,” he wrote, citing past legal precedent.
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Why do none of these articles ever ask why the GOP waits until between 2 months and 2 weeks before an election to try and purge voters? Why aren’t they going through this process say a few months after an election where they have all the time in the world before the next one to get things in order? Why do they constantly try to have the courts make a ruling, bypassing the actual processes in place?
We know the reason. The GOP wins when fewer people vote. If they can have a judge throw a quarter million voters out, that’s nearly the same as them gaining a quarter million votes. Also can have a knock on effect of people that were registered to vote, have been registered for years but for whatever reason are included in this group, try to vote on election day and get told they can’t. Or they vote provisionally and then have a GOP State AG go after them for voter fraud… that the party artificially created. Two for one there, fewer voters and they get the voter fraud they’re always screaming about without evidence. They can just make the evidence appear by illegally purging eligible voters close to elections.