Inside NC's Dysfunctional Relationship With Democracy
While there’s dysfunction in NC’s relationship with democracy, we can always learn from history and advocate for change in various ways. Regardless of voter status, party affiliation, or social identities. Photo credits: Democracy North Carolina
Democracy (noun): a system of government in which the people of a country can vote to elect their representatives.
- Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
The above definition serves as an excellent introduction to the subject of democracy—not just on the federal level, but also the state level. National Voter Registration Day (September 19th) just passed, which encouraged people in all U.S. states to engage in the electoral process.
So, North Carolinians: are you registered to vote? If so, you’ve completed one step of the electoral process already. If not, what turns you off from the electoral process? Do you believe your vote will not count? Do you simply believe that one vote cannot make a difference? Perhaps there is underlying fear of voting due to voter disenfranchisement and distrust towards the government. Maybe you once voted or tried to vote and learned that your vote did not count due to structural barriers.
In all fairness, the electoral process in North Carolina has not been the simplest or most transparent one out there. From electoral maps to signature verifications to different voting methods, voting may seem like a tedious task. The registration rules seem like they are always evolving – and they are. Due to ambiguous and lengthy paragraphs that exist in drafted laws, it can be hard for even avid voters to stay updated on the requirements. For example, North Carolina just passed a Voter ID law on April 28th of this year. Previously, voter ID laws were twice ruled as anti-Black and oppressive twice beforehand: once in 2016 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and again in 2021 by the NC Supreme Court. This is because when obtaining valid voter IDs, elections officials would discriminate against Black voters and hold them to higher standards than their White counterparts.
It’s a shame that voter disenfranchisement against anyone happens in North Carolina or anywhere else at all. In fact, NC has a long history of voter disenfranchisement. This can be traced back by giving a short, yet critical, history of voter eligibility in the U.S.
It’s important to note that in the nation’s early years, nationwide suffrage was limited to White men property owners. Although voting demographics have evolved since that time, the requirement that never changed was being a U.S. citizen. Unfortunately, not everyone could be granted that privilege. We could trace voter disenfranchisement back to 1790 with the Naturalization Act. While White immigrants could be granted U.S. citizenship, Black and Native Peoples could not. Thus, Black and Native Peoples were ineligible to vote for decades.
It was not until the 14th Amendment in 1868 that Black people were granted U.S. citizenship. That still didn’t guarantee suffrage for them, because although the 15th Amendment granted Black men suffrage in 1870, it did not grant suffrage to Black women. That came with the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted (most) women suffrage. It’s important to note that that amendment did not extend to many Native women, as Native Peoples were not all granted U.S. citizenship until 1924 with the Indian Citizenship Act. Even after that, states such as Alaska and Arizona enforced voter disenfranchisement laws against Natives for years. This is because voter eligibility requirements were (and still are) handled under state powers, not federal powers.
Nevertheless, how the U.S. government handled voter eligibility guidelines was and still is a heavy influence on individual states, including North Carolina. As mentioned earlier, it used to be solely White property owners who were guaranteed suffrage in the U.S. The property ownership requirement for White men started to be removed in the decades after the U.S.’ founding, but North Carolina did not remove theirs until 1856. At that time, it was the last existing U.S. state to do so.
There’s also the enforcement of literacy tests, poll taxes, and racist violence in the U.S.’ electoral history. North Carolina is one of the states guilty of committing such crimes. In fact, it is one of the most historically notorious anti-voting rights states in all the U.S. For example, November 10, 1898 saw the Wilmington Race Riot occur in Wilmington, North Carolina. Considered the sole successful coup d’etat in U.S. history, hundreds of White supremacists invaded the then-majority Black city, infiltrated a Black-owned newspaper press called The Daily Record, and overthrew Wilmington’s city government. The exact death toll is unknown, but a significant number of Black residents fled and never returned to the city. The Wilmington Race Riot was plotted and executed to censor Black leaders, White allies, and disenfranchise Black voters in Wilmington.
As for poll taxes and literacy tests, they were legal under federal law as long as they were pushed as applying to all racial groups. That being said, the NC government knew that many Black people would fail the literacy test and be unable to afford the poll tax. This led to another impactful event in NC’s electoral history: the ratification of the Suffrage Amendment (Article VI) into the state constitution. It happened on August 2, 1900, and Section 4 of that amendment legalized literacy tests and poll taxes in NC. Their goal was to specifically target Black people with those laws, and they did that by using covertly discriminatory tactics. While the poll tax became illegal in 1920, literacy tests remained legal until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 denounced discrimination in the electoral process and, under Section 4(b), required states and municipalities mentioned under Section 5 (e.g., some NC counties) to gain federal approval before changing any electoral guidelines. This was due to their history of enacting discriminatory voting laws, and most of the ones listed were in the South. As of June 25, 2013, however, the states and counties listed under Section 5 can revise voting laws at their own discretion, no federal approval needed. On that day, the Supreme Court overturned Section 4(b) in Shelby County v. Holder. Their verdict meant that said areas (including those in North Carolina) could make discriminatory voting laws that disenfranchise Black and other voters of color, as well as those part of other marginalized groups. This leaves room for more information on North Carolina’s suffrage history since Section 4(b)’s overturn. Recently, the Supreme Court looked at a case originating from North Carolina: Moore v. Harper. It brought the issues of gerrymandering and partisan abuses of power, as gerrymandered maps were about to be enforced in NC. The Supreme Court denounced those abusive power attempts in a 6-3 vote. That being said, gerrymandering is not the only action threatening suffrage in North Carolina.
There’s also felony disenfranchisement, or revoking suffrage from citizens who have been convicted of a felony. While it applies to people of all racial identities, felony disenfranchisement was primarily enacted to disenfranchise Black voters. Just after the Civil War, White supremacists in NC whipped a series of Black individuals convicted of committing so-called “infamous crimes” (i.e., felony, treason). Through convicting Black individuals of such crimes, they would become ineligible to vote. The whippings were done to solidify the conviction and to terrorize Black people away from electoral engagement. Not to mention, felony disenfranchisement was enacted in NC during the mid 1870s to counter the U.S. Constitution’s 15th Amendment. So when some 56,000 North Carolinians convicted of felonies gained suffrage on July 27, 2022, it was a big step in disenfranchising felony disenfranchisement. But that feeling was short-lived. Their suffrage was revoked on April 28, 2023.
Furthermore, voting methods are being put under further scrutiny. In 2022, there was a failed attempt at implementing signature verification, where elections officials would verify the authenticity of mail-in ballots by cross-examining voters’ signatures on their ballots and voting records. The premise would be to ensure that each voter’s signatures match those on all their records or their ballot could be rendered null and void. It was proposed in the name of “election integrity,” while at the same time reenforcing ageism and ableism. Signatures evolve due to life events, especially due to disabilities. Depending on a person’s abilities, they may even need someone to sign and turn in the ballot on their behalf. Furthermore, in some upcoming NC municipal elections, mail-in voting is not allowed—a move that further hinders ballot accessibility. Let’s not even get started on how Black voters’ mail ballots are rejected at higher rates than those of White voters. With both ableism and racism at work, Black disabled people face multiple structural barriers in the electoral process.
Those structural barriers are there because voter disenfranchisement efforts are ultimately rooted in one thing and one thing only: White supremacy. Marginalized groups have started gaining explicit recognition under the law in recent years, but as their rights increase, White supremacists feel like their power is decreasing. The goal of White supremacy is to give a little bit of, but not too much, power to marginalized groups. They’ll grant “equality” but not allow the uprooting of White supremacy, nor allow marginalized groups to dilute the power of Whiteness. The outlawing of discrimination has only applied to overt, but not covert forms of discrimination. Covert discrimination can be just as damaging as overt discrimination, if not more so.
In the case of voting, White supremacists hate that marginalized groups are voting against them. They fear that they’ll lose their power. To combat their fear, they’ll do things like terrorize marginalized groups at the polls, pass discriminatory bills that infringe on their rights, and incite violence against poll workers. Social justice issues should not be ”political,” but unfortunately, they are. White supremacists use social media, the government, and threats of violence to spew hate and conspiracy theories. That extends to influencing voter demographics. Anyone or anything that’s a threat to White supremacy goes onto their disenfranchise list.
It may seem like North Carolina is working harder than the devil to disenfranchise voters with one or multiple marginalized identities, but the efforts will backfire when everything is said and done. Discriminatory actions can only be tolerated for so long. At some point, the consequences of such actions will impact not just the opponents of such efforts, but also supporters. Imagine if someone who supported efforts of voter disenfranchisement mysteriously had their vote thrown out, even if they ticked all the boxes of being privileged (i.e., White, cishet man, high-income, etc.). That could cause turmoil in politics. And what happens in politics doesn’t purely stay in politics—it goes as far as to influence every person’s quality of life. There is no such thing as apoliticism, because politics dictates the ability to do the things many people take for granted: refueling cars, window shopping at outlet malls, taking time off from work, and the list goes on.
All of that is to highlight this point: even though it will take time, hard work, and collective effort, it is possible to make NC’s relationship with democracy a functional, requited one. The core way to make that possible: disenfranchise voter disenfranchisement. To disenfranchise voter disenfranchisement is to do the people’s work. To disenfranchise voter disenfranchisement is to promote prosperity in NC and all of the U.S. To disenfranchise voter disenfranchisement is to pinpoint the sources of harm, especially White supremacy. To disenfranchise voter disenfranchisement is to uphold the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment is supposed to apply to all, not just a select few populations.
To all North Carolinians: if you’re interested in becoming more electorally engaged, you have multiple options. Sending messages to your local and state representatives, protesting, educating yourself on critical issues, and knowing your voting rights are valuable forms of electoral engagement. Being a social justice advocate against White supremacy and all forms of oppression is another form of electoral engagement (and one that everyone should do anyway).
Even if you’re not interested in voting in any election, you can still advocate against voter disenfranchisement in support of those who decide to vote. And in hoping that one day voting will be a safe process for all – including yourself when and if you choose to do so.