Opinion ID: 2738874
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court Misapprehended and

Text: Misapplied the Law A close look at the district court’s analysis here reveals numerous grave errors of law that constitute an abuse of discretion. Centro Tepeyac, 722 F.3d at 188. First, the district court bluntly held that “Section 2 does not incorporate a ‘retrogression’ standard” and that the court therefore was “not concerned with whether the elimination of [same-day registration and other features] will worsen the position of minority voters in comparison to the preexisting voting standard, practice or procedure—a Section 5 inquiry.” McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 351-52 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Contrary to the district court’s statements, Section 2, on its face, requires a broad “totality of the circumstances” review. 52 U.S.C. § 10301(b). Clearly, an eye toward past practices is part and parcel of the totality of the circumstances. Further, as the Supreme Court noted, “some parts of the [Section] 2 analysis may overlap with the [Section] 5 inquiry.” Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461, 478 (2003). Both Section 2 and Section 5 invite comparison by using the term “abridge[].” Section 5 states that any voting practice or procedure “that has the purpose of or will have the effect of diminishing the 36 ability of any citizens of the United States on account of race or color . . . to elect their preferred candidates of choice denies or abridges the right to vote.” 52 U.S.C. § 10304(b) (emphasis added). Section 2 forbids any “standard, practice, or procedure” that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has explained that “[t]he term ‘abridge,’ . . . whose core meaning is ‘shorten,’. . . necessarily entails a comparison. It makes no sense to suggest that a voting practice ‘abridges’ the right to vote without some baseline with which to compare the practice.” Reno v. Bossier Parish Sch. Bd., 528 U.S. 320, 333– 34 (2000) (citations omitted). Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever held that, in determining whether an abridgement has occurred, courts are categorically barred from considering past practices, as the district court here suggested. In fact, opinions from other circuits support the opposite conclusion. For example, the Tenth Circuit, quoting directly from Section 2’s legislative history, has explained that “‘[i]f [a challenged] procedure markedly departs from past practices or from practices elsewhere in the jurisdiction, that bears on the fairness of its impact.’” Sanchez v. State of Colo., 97 F.3d 1303, 1325 (10th Cir. 1996) (quoting 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 207, n.117). And as the Sixth 37 Circuit recently held, under Section 2, “the focus is whether minorities enjoy less opportunity to vote as compared to other voters. The fact that a practice or law eliminates voting opportunities that used to exist under prior law that African Americans disproportionately used is therefore relevant to an assessment of whether, under the current system, African Americans have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process as compared to other voters.” Husted, 2014 WL 4724703, at . In this case, North Carolina’s previous voting practices are centrally relevant under Section 2. They are a critical piece of the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis Section 2 requires. In refusing to consider the elimination of voting mechanisms successful in fostering minority participation, the district court misapprehended and misapplied Section 2. Second, the district court considered each challenged electoral mechanism only separately. See McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 344 (addressing same-day registration), at 365 (addressing out-of-precinct voting), at 370 (early voting), at 375 (identification requirements), at 378 (pre-registration of teenagers), and at 379 (poll challengers and elimination of discretion to keep the polls open). Yet “[a] panoply of regulations, each apparently defensible when considered alone, may nevertheless have the combined effect of severely 38 restricting participation and competition.” Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581, 607-08 (2005) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). By inspecting the different parts of House Bill 589 as if they existed in a vacuum, the district court failed to consider the sum of those parts and their cumulative effect on minority access to the ballot box. Doing so is hard to square with Section 2’s mandate to look at the “totality of the circumstances,” 52 U.S.C. § 10301(b), as well as Supreme Court precedent requiring “a searching practical evaluation” with a “functional view of the political process.” Gingles, 478 U.S. at 45 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). By looking at each provision separately and failing to consider the totality of the circumstances, then, the district court misapprehended and misapplied the pertinent law. Third, the district court failed to adequately consider North Carolina’s history of voting discrimination. Instead the district court parroted the Supreme Court’s proclamation that “‘history did not end in 1965,’” McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 349 (quoting Shelby Cnty., 133 S. Ct. at 2628) and that “‘[p]ast discrimination cannot, in the manner of original sin, condemn governmental action.’” Id. (quoting City of Mobile, Ala. v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 74 (1980)). 39 Of course, the history of voting discrimination in many states in fact did substantially end in 1965—due in large part to the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s observation that a state’s history should not serve to condemn its future, however, does not absolve states from their future transgressions. As Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her Shelby County dissent, casting aside the Voting Rights Act because it has worked “to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” 133 S. Ct. at 2650 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Immediately after Shelby County, i.e., literally the next day, when “history” without the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirements picked up where it left off in 1965, North Carolina rushed to pass House Bill 589, the “full bill” legislative leadership likely knew it could not have gotten past federal preclearance in the pre–Shelby County era. McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 336. Thus, to whatever extent the Supreme Court could rightly celebrate voting rights progress in Shelby County, the post-Shelby County facts on the ground in North Carolina should have cautioned the district court against doing so here. Fourth, in analyzing the elimination of same-day registration, the district court looked to the National Voter Registration Act, which generally allows for a registration cutoff of thirty days before an election. McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d 40 at 352. The district court then declared that “it is difficult to conclude that Congress intended that a State’s adoption of a registration cut-off before election day would constitute a violation of Section 2.” Id. In doing so, the district court lost sight of the fact that the National Voter Registration Act merely sets a floor for state registration systems. That North Carolina used to exceed National Voter Registration Act registration minimums does not entitle it to eliminate its more generous registration provisions without ensuring that, in doing so, it is not violating Section 2. Indeed, Congress made that quite clear by including in the National Voter Registration Act an express warning that the rights and remedies it established shall not “supersede, restrict, or limit the application of the Voting Rights Act.” 52 U.S.C. § 20510(d)(1). Fifth, also with respect to same-day registration, the district court suggested that because voting was not completely foreclosed and because voters could still register and vote by mail, a likely Section 2 violation had not been shown. See McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 356 (noting that “North Carolina provides several other ways to register” besides same-day registration that “have not been shown to be practically unavailable to African–American residents”). 41 However, nothing in Section 2 requires a showing that voters cannot register or vote under any circumstance. Instead, it requires “that a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives.” Gingles, 478 U.S. at 47. In waiving off disproportionately high African American use of certain curtailed registration and voting mechanisms as mere “preferences” that do not absolutely preclude participation, the district court abused its discretion. See McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 351. Sixth, Section 2, on its face, is local in nature. Under Section 2, “[a] violation . . . is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by citizens of protected races.” 52 U.S.C. § 10301(b) (emphasis added). As the Supreme Court has noted, in undertaking a Section 2 analysis, courts make “an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of” electoral administration “in the light of past and present reality.” Gingles, 478 U.S. at 78. Nevertheless, without any basis in the statute or binding precedent, the district court suggested that a practice must be discriminatory on a nationwide basis to violate Section 2 and 42 held that a conclusion it might reach as to North Carolina would somehow throw other states’ election laws into turmoil. For example, the district court stated that “a determination that North Carolina is in violation of Section 2 merely for maintaining a system that does not count out-of-precinct provisional ballots could place in jeopardy the laws of the majority of the States, which have made the decision not to count such ballots.” McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 367. The district court’s failure to understand the local nature of Section 2 constituted grave error. Cf. Husted, 2014 WL 4724703, at  (“There is no reason to think our decision here compels any conclusion about the early-voting practices in other states, which do not necessarily share Ohio’s particular circumstances.”). Seventh, the district court minimized Plaintiffs’ claim as to out-of-precinct voting because “so few voters cast” ballots in the wrong precincts. McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 366. The district court accepted evidence that “approximately 3,348 outof-precinct provisional ballots cast by [African American] voters were counted to some extent in the 2012 general election.” Id. Going forward under House Bill 589, a substantial number of African American voters will thus likely be disenfranchised. 43 Though the district court recognized that “failure to count out-of-precinct provisional ballots will have a disproportionate effect on [African American] voters,” it held that such an effect “will be minimal.” Id. Setting aside the basic truth that even one disenfranchised voter—let alone several thousand— is too many, what matters for purposes of Section 2 is not how many minority voters are being denied equal electoral opportunities but simply that “any” minority voter is being denied equal electoral opportunities. 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a) (forbidding any “standard, practice, or procedure” that interacts with social and historical conditions and thereby “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color”) (emphasis added). Eighth and finally, the district court rationalized election administration changes that disproportionately affected minority voters on the pretext of procedural inertia and underresourcing. For example, in evaluating Plaintiffs’ Section 2 challenge to the elimination of same-day registration, the district court noted that county boards of elections “sometimes lack[] sufficient time to verify registrants.” McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 353. But in detailing why that was so, the district court exposed that the problem’s roots lie largely in boards of elections’ own procedures. Id. at 353 and n.36. The district 44 court then noted that “a voter who registered before the ‘close of books’ 25 days before election day will have more time to pass the verification procedure than a voter who registered and voted during early voting.” McCrory, 997 F. Supp. 2d at 353. But more time alone guarantees nothing, and nothing suggests that a voter who registers earlier will therefore be verified before voting. The district court failed to recognize, much less address, the problem of sacrificing voter enfranchisement at the altar of bureaucratic (in)efficiency and (under-)resourcing. After all, Section 2 does not prescribe a balancing test under which the State can pit its desire for administrative ease against its minority citizens’ right to vote. The district court thus abused its discretion when it held that “[i]t is sufficient for the State to voice concern that [same-day registration] burdened [county boards of elections] and left inadequate time for elections officials to properly verify voters.” Id. at 354. These flaws in the district court’s Section 2 analysis make it clear that the district court both misapprehended and misapplied the pertinent law. Accordingly, the district court abused its discretion. Centro Tepeyac, 722 F.3d at 188. 45