In an article from earlier this week on the Brietbart website, J. Christian Adams reports on some of the testimony during the recent hearings before the federal District Court for the middle district of North Carolina, which then ruled that some provisions of the new NC Voter ID law could not be implemented for the November 4th election.  Days later, the District Court’s ruling was enjoined by the US Supreme Court, of course, so all the provisions of the law will be in effect.

However, the testimony from political scientist Charles Stewart, the expert hired by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice to hold forth against the changes to the voter law, provides an invaluable insight into why the US-DOJ, the NC-NAACP, the NC League of Women Voters, and others are so opposed to the new law.  Herewith, two excerpts from Stewart’s testimony:

It’s also the case that — well, yes, so it would, empirically more likely affect African Americans.  Also, understanding within political science, that people who register to vote the closer and closer one gets to Election Day tend to be less sophisticated voters, tend to be less educated voters, tend to be voters who are less attuned to public affairs.  That also tells me from the literature of political science that there are likely to be people who will end up not registering and not voting.  People who correspond to those factors tend to be African Americans, and, therefore, that’s another vehicle through which African Americans would be disproportionately affected by this law.

and while on the witness stand:

Stewart:  People who have lower education and who have less – that pay less attention to public affairs will have greater problems figuring out how to vote, yes.

Q.  Okay.  So your testimony is that African Americans are less sophisticated than white voters; is that right?

Stewart:  My understanding is that African Americans have lower levels of education in North Carolina, and I know from the public opinion work that African Americans report that they paid less attention to public affairs on average than white voters do probably because of the differences [in] the education.

Q.  Do you think they are less able to figure out what the rules are for when you have to register to vote and when you have to go vote?

Stewart:  The ability to figure these things out is related to one’s education.  As I said, that ability — those average abilities are due to differences in things like education.

Q.  Okay.  So then you are saying that African American voters have less ability to figure out what the rules are for voting?

Stewart:  I said African Americans have less education, which leads to an ability to navigate the rules of the game.

By now, almost everyone understands how easily a North Carolina citizen can become registered to vote, even under the new law.  But I agree with journalist Adams that the expert witness is basically saying that African-Americans are too dumb to be able to adapt to the new procedures contained in the law.  What does that say about the opinion that Obama, Holder, the NAACP, and the LWV have about the capabilities of black North Carolinians?

The article by J. Christian Adams is HERE, and the actual trial transcript of Charles Stewart’s testimony is HERE.  For more on the acceptable forms of identification needed to obtain the requisite Photo ID, go to THIS link and click on the “Outreach and Education” topic.