Court rejects NC felon voting law, pointing to racist origin and turnout effect

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against a North Carolina law that criminalized voting for people with felony convictions, even if they thought their right to vote had been restored.

Even though that law has since been changed, “Prosecutions under the challenged statute would likely have a chilling effect on voter registration in the communities it serves,” a three-judge panel on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote.

The ruling upholds a district court’s order from last year, in which Judge Loretta Biggs struck down the law as unconstitutional, writing that the law’s racist origin as part of 19th century efforts to target Black voters “has not been cleansed.”

Defendants in the case did not dispute that the law was originally intended to discriminate against Black voters, who were convicted of felonies at much higher rates than white voters in the Jim Crow South.

They also did not dispute that the law “continues to disproportionately impact Black North Carolinians,” wrote Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, an appointee of President Joe Biden who authored the 4th Circuit’s opinion.

Judges James Wynn and Pamela Harris, both of whom were appointed by President Barack Obama, joined Benjamin’s opinion.

Friday’s ruling does not change the fact that North Carolinians serving felony sentences are ineligible to vote. Rather, it upholds a ruling saying they cannot be prosecuted for mistakenly doing so.

Lawyers for the State Board of Elections, which is the defendant in the case, argued that the lawsuit was moot due to a change in the law approved by the legislature in 2023.

Lawmakers amended the longstanding ban on felon voting to specify that someone serving a felony sentence could not be prosecuted for voting unless they knew their rights had not been restored.

The N.C. A. Philip Randolph Institute, a civil rights group, argued that this change was not sufficient as it only applied to future voters. Prosecutors could still hypothetically go after voters alleged to have cast their ballots before 2024 while serving a felony sentence.

The 4th Circuit agreed, saying that the fact that future cases could not be brought “is of no consequence” because pre-2024 prosecutions could cause confusion among voters.

“When presented with stories of continuing criminal charges for mistakenly voting, it is not a stretch to imagine that eligible community members ... might not understand that they as new registrants could not be prosecuted for the same,” the court wrote.

A spokesperson for the State Board of Elections did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling.

This story was originally published September 12, 2025 at 12:42 PM.

Kyle Ingram

The News & Observer

Kyle Ingram is the Democracy Reporter for the News & Observer. He reports on voting rights, election administration, the state judicial branch and more. He is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill.