Excerpt from National Review
Written by National Review Editors
In North Carolina, a slight drop in African-American turnout during this year’s early-voting period occasioned breathless reporting from mainstream outlets and invocations of “Jim Crow” from Democratic activists. Such outrages have become an election-year ritual, but, as usual, politically expedient fiction has outpaced fact.
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By way of background: In 2013, North Carolina passed a law requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, ending same-day registration, and shortening the length of early voting from 17 to ten days — all of which was met by liberal hysterics. Hillary Clinton called it an “assault on voting rights.” In August, the Fourth Circuit struck down the law, on the basis that Republicans had passed the law “with discriminatory intent” — a justification for which there is no evidence whatsoever. As a result, North Carolina’s 100 counties were required to file new election rules with the state’s election board, just three months before Election Day.
Contrary to claims by everyone from the New York Times to ThinkProgress, early-voting opportunities were not subsequently “slashed.” In fact, early voting was dramatically expanded.