Kari Lake Claims Her Voters Were Disenfranchised. Her Voters Tell a Different Story.
Last week, the US Supreme Court invalidated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The provisions were enacted in 1965 to prevent voter suppression, and ensure equal access to the ballot box.
However, a 5–4 decision by the Supreme Court, Shelby County v Holder, struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act which had been upheld by previous courts.
The decision was a blow for voting rights activists in North Carolina and Mississippi. The decision effectively disenfranchised voters in the Deep South, and has led to a flurry of lawsuits across the country.
On March 24, 2015, a 5-year-old girl, Kari Lake, was shot to death in her mother’s Charlotte, North Carolina neighborhood. A few nights after Kari’s murder, Lake’s mother, Angela Lake, filed a petition with the court. Lake’s petition sought to have the citizenship question on the 2020 US Census removed from the count.
A group of citizens, including Angela Lake, her father, Bob Lake, and an associate of one of her supporters, Lee Cooper, who is a senior fellow of the Heritage Foundation, filed suit in district court in Charlotte. On May 19, 2015, a federal district court ruled that “the citizenship question on the census is unconstitutional and unenforceable.” The decision in United States v Secretary of Commerce was issued on June 9, 2015, and marked a legal loss for citizens and voting rights groups across the US.
The ruling was later upheld by a lower court in federal court in Washington D.C., but that ruling was overruled by the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the citizenship question, and has stated that the citizenship question “does not appear to have any ‘independent justification.’”
On August 12, 2015, the US Supreme Court, acting as a three-judge panel, voted unanimously to take review of the case, the scope of the decision, and the scope of the US Constitution. The 5-4 conservative majority decision in a case where the majority ruled against a group of citizens seeking to have the citizenship question on the census removed from the count, was not surprising,