A federal judge has struck down a nearly 150-year-old North Carolina law prohibiting felons from voting.
The law, enacted in 1877, had made it a new felony offense for “any person convicted of a crime which excludes the person from the right of suffrage, to vote at any primary or election without having been restored to the right of citizenship.”
The North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute, a self-described black trade unionist advocacy group; and a civil rights advocacy group called Action NC, had challenged the state’s law prohibiting convicted felons from voting.
The plaintiffs originally brought their lawsuit against the North Carolina Board of Elections in 2020….
