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Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. There was big voting rights news out of North Carolina last week. Roughly 56,000 formally incarcerated residents living in North Carolina, who are on parole probation now have the right to register to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. The North Carolina court of appeals ordered the decision to take effect on July 27th.

While the case has been appealed, voting rights advocates see this development as an important step in the fight for equity at the ballot box calling it the largest expansion of voting rights since the 1965 Voting Rights Act. With me now is Rusty Jacobs, Politics Reporter for WUNC North Carolina Public Radio. Rusty, thanks for being with us.

Rusty Jacobs: You're welcome.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, so this wasn't exactly a new legal ruling. Explain what it was that happened on the 27th.

Rusty Jacobs: Going back to March of this year, as you mentioned, it was a superior court trial court panel made up of three judges that struck down this iteration of the law. This was drafted in the 1970s, and as you said, it prohibited anybody with a felony conviction who had not completed post-release conditions of their sentence. They may have finished any jail or any active prison terms but if they were on probation, parole, or post-release supervision they could not regain their voting rights.

This was deemed to be a constitutional violation, violating people's fundamental equal protection rights. Once that law was struck down, it was appealed by the Republican lawmakers who tried to defend it. The court of appeals in North Carolina put a hold on that ruling taking effect until after this year's midterm primaries in May and the July 2nd primaries as well as municipal elections which just happened. As of July 27th, people with felony convictions who may still be on parole or probation or finishing some post-release supervision terms can now register to vote.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. Talk to me a little bit about this 1973 law. North Carolina has so frequently in American history, been at the center of the question of voting rights and I think it surprises people sometimes to find out just how progressive the constitution of the state of North Carolina is, and yet also these laws which were more restrictive. Tell me a little bit about that history.

Rusty Jacobs: The advocacy groups, the plaintiffs who fought to have this law overturned said you cannot divorce the law from its historical roots. Along with literacy tests, along with poll taxes, laws restricting people with felony convictions from voting go back to the reconstruction era. That was a direct response to the enfranchisement of Black voters of African Americans. Republican lawmakers defending this law even acknowledged that this law has its roots in a racist backlash to the enfranchisement of Black voters. They said that the 1971, 1973 iteration of this law was not conceived in the same way.

They said that this was a clarification of the law that made it uniform that affects everybody equally the same way. In fact, the state constitution requires the restoration of rights to people with felony convictions in a manner prescribed by law. They say this latest iteration of the law which dates back to the early 70s fulfills a constitutional provision but the advocates fighting against it say no there's no way you can disconnect it from that racist history. You've got the disparate impact presented as evidence at trial to back that argument up.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Rusty, help us understand how this ruling affects Black voters in the state.

Rusty Jacobs: There's 21% African American voting age population in North Carolina whereas 42% of that number is disenfranchised under the law with white Americans in North Carolina, the voting age population it's 72% or so and only 52% are disenfranchised under the law. Bottom line it comes down to one and a quarter percent of the African American voting age population is disenfranchised under the law whereas less than half a percent of the white voting age population is disenfranchised by the law. That disparate impact helped deliver the ruling we're talking about.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. Tell me about the partisan makeup of the North Carolina Supreme court and how that may have factored in here.

Rusty Jacobs: Yes, it's important to note for all the listeners that judges and Supreme court justices in North Carolina are elected in partisan contests. In most cases, judges and justices are affiliated with one of the two major parties. Actually want to go back, you've got the trial court panel, the three court judge panel that ruled in this case back in March that was made up of a Republican, a Democrat, and an unaffiliated judge. The court of appeals in North Carolina is made up of a 15-judge bank and that's dominated by Republicans.

You should note that the advocates in the plaintiffs fighting for the overturning of this law sought and got the state Supreme court to take over the appeal. This appeal will not be ruled on by the court of appeals. It just went right to the state Supreme court, which is made up of seven justices at this time four of them are Democrats, three are Republicans. I also want to note that two Supreme court seats are up this year in this November's elections and those are both held currently by Democrats.

Melissa Harris-Perry: 56,000 North Carolinians. What are the predictions about how many of those folks are actually likely at this point to register? In other words, is this a decision that can have an actual impact on the outcomes of this midterm, particularly, the extremely highly contested Senate race?

Rusty Jacobs: Right. Potentially, yes. Look, it's very unlikely that now that the gate has opened and these 56,000 people with felony convictions are eligible to register to vote, that all of them will, will the word get out quickly enough, will each one of those voters or potential voters know what they have to do to get the enfranchisement? The answer there is certainly no, not all of them. I just want to look at the numbers. In 2020, Donald Trump edged Joe Biden in North Carolina for the presidential vote by more than 74,000. In that case, just number to number one to one note probably wouldn't have made a difference.

Same thing in this senate race Thom Tillis regaining his seat over his Democratic challenger by more than 96,000 votes. In 2016, Governor Roy Cooper, that was his first term, edged then incumbent and Republican Pat McCrory by just a little more than 10,000 votes. This state is known for tight races. It's also known for divided government with federal offices going maybe to candidates of one party and state offices going to candidates of a different party. The impact could certainly be significant.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Rusty Jacobs is a Politics Reporter for WUNC North Carolina Public Radio. Rusty, thanks so much for joining us.

Rusty Jacobs: You're welcome.

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