Judge who approved North Carolina ballot restrictions also upheld GOP law targeting Black voters ‘with almost surgical precision’

Ten years before a federal judge approved North Carolina’s new measures restricting absentee ballots, he upheld a strict voter ID law over pro-voting groups’ objections.

An appeals panel later reversed that ruling, describing the law as “one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history,” and finding that it targeted Black voters “with almost surgical precision.”

This March, that same judge permitted a 2023 North Carolina law that made it easier for the state to cancel voters’ eligibility without notification. An appeal is pending.

Now, the judge — U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder, an appointee of former President George W. Bush — has rejected another challenge to a restrictive North Carolina elections rule, this time last-minute signature-matching and envelope-sealing requirements for mail ballots.

It appears to be the latest in Schroeder’s series of anti-voting rulings allowing North Carolina to make it harder to vote and easier to disenfranchise voters. The rulings have hit disadvantaged groups the hardest.

In the 2016 ruling, Schroeder’s logic was simple: While discrimination was a “shameful” part of North Carolina’s past, it had long since disappeared. 

The problem, the appeals court later concluded, was that the legislature clearly had “discriminatory intent.”

“We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history,” the appeals court wrote.

The two pro-voting lawsuits Schroeder ruled on this year did not allege racial animus, but they did argue the laws would broadly disenfranchise North Carolina voters.

The 2023 law required same-day registrants to verify their addresses within 10 days after the election or else their vote would be discounted. Since many young voters and college students rely on same-day registration, the suit argued the law unfairly targeted them. In March, Schroeder disagreed. 

And in October, Schroeder said that North Carolina’s new absentee-ballot requirements, which went into effect the same day mail ballots were sent out, did not violate the Supreme Court’s Purcell principle, which holds that courts should not change voting or election rules too close to an election in order to avoid confusion for voters and election officials alike.

Schroeder’s ruling will likely be appealed to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is currently reviewing his March decision. 

But for now, its requirements are in effect and cast a pall on North Carolina elections heading into the midterms.