North Carolina has filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court regarding the state’s voter ID law after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the law.

Read: 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Strikes Again, Overturns NC Voter ID Law
Read: 4th Circuit Ruling
Read:  HOUSE BILL 589

The application has been sent to Chief Justice Roberts. The opening pages are a barn burner.

Here’s an excerpt:

Mere months before a general presidential election, the Fourth Circuit has invalidated several provisions of North Carolina election law as intentionally discriminatory even though the court did not disturb the District Court’s extensive and exhaustive factual findings that those provisions will not actually have a
discriminatory impact on minority voters. To our knowledge, that marks the first time in the past half century that a court of appeals has reversed a fact-finder’s finding that a State did not enact an election law with discriminatory intent, and the first time in history that a court has invalidated as intentionally discriminatory an election law that has been affirmatively found to have no discriminatory effect. To make matters worse, the Fourth Circuit reached these unprecedented results in the context of a voting reform this Court has already held to be constitutional. Moreover,
the Fourth Circuit based its discriminatory intent finding almost exclusively on evidence that the challenged provisions could have a disparate impact on minorities, even though it did not disturb the District Court’s finding that they will not actually do so. And the ultimate result is that the Fourth Circuit has prohibited North Carolina from enforcing a voter-ID law that is actually more sensitive to disparate impact concerns than those in force in many of its sister States, and simultaneously compelled North Carolina to reinstate several other voting practices that most other States do not permit at all.

Also, this bit – which highlights that the 4th Circuit appears to have ignored facts:

Moreover, the Fourth Circuit’s decision does so in disregard of nearly 500 pages of meticulous factual findings made by a District Court that considered a nearly 25,000- page record and testimony from over 100 witnesses. 

Here’s the meat of the application, which contains three main points including pre-registration, early voting days and the fact that the voter ID requirement was already used in one election with .008% of voters reporting an impediment issue:

First, as to the voter-ID law, the State has already had one election with its voter-ID requirement in place, and only .008% of the 2.3 million votes cast during that near-record-high-turnout 2016 primary were not counted because a voter could not obtain photo ID or qualify for the provision’s robust “reasonable impediment” exception. Second, as to early voting, the State has had multiple elections with 10 days instead of 17, and its requirement that each county maintain the same number of early voting hours as it did under the previous 17-day rule has actually significantly increased early voting, both generally and by minorities—presumably because the law frees up counties to devote their limited resources to offering more convenient early voting hours and locations. Finally, staying the “preregistration” of 16-year-olds could not possibly impede or deter anyone from voting in the upcoming general election because no 16-year-old will be eligible to do so.

Read the full Emergency Application:

Interestingly, the 4th Circuit ruling overturning NC’s Voter ID law  lists, “Penda D. Hair, ADVANCEMENT PROJECT, Washington” as having been one of many argued the case. Penda Hair is married to the White House Counsel, Neal Eggleston.  Local media appear to have not made this connection nor noted the possibly conflict of interest therein.

On top of ignoring the statistics for voter ID,  it  seems the 4th Circuit has also ignored that the Obama administration’s Dept. of Justice approved the voting maps for North Carolina.

Footnote number 184 on page 331 of the 420 Memorandum Opinion and Order NC Voter ID states there appears to be discriminatory intent, yet made no claim against the law in court:

“Notably, the United States does not make a § 2 results claim against the current version of North Carolina’s ID law. (Doc. 419 at 73 n.26.) The United States’ only ID-related claim is that SL 2013-381 was passed with discriminatory intent.”

Related:

Dems whining about bizarrely drawn “racially gerrymandered” districts had no.probs w/ this one. #ncpol #nc12 #ncga pic.twitter.com/e9hYUlb7sT

— Sister Toldjah ツ (@sistertoldjah) August 12, 2016

What the N&O doesn’t want you to know: Obama’s DOJ approved NC’s maps in 2011 https://t.co/kKTqPcCrMP #ncpol #ncga pic.twitter.com/lMJQM1tOti

— Sister Toldjah ツ (@sistertoldjah) August 12, 2016