Those changes included a reduction in days for early voting, restrictions on voters casting ballots outside of their registered district, and, of course, a requirement that voters have a government-issued photo ID.
North Carolina wouldn't have been able to pass those reforms without federal preclearance if Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act were in place.
And North Carolina and Alabama aren't the only Republican-controlled states that have passed voter suppression laws like this.
Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia were all covered under Section 4, and have all passed Voter ID laws and other restrictions since the Shelby County ruling in 2013.
And even beyond the Deep South, Republican controlled legislatures around the country are using the phony non-problem of "voter fraud," which is virtually non-existent, as an excuse to make it harder for people, particularly people of color, the elderly, students and the poor, from registering to vote or voting.
Wisconsin and Ohio, under the governorships of Scott Walker and John Kasich, have both put into place voter suppression laws that require a photo ID to vote, reduce the period for early voting, and make it harder to register other people to vote.
What do all of these states have in common?
Every single one of them has Republican controlled legislatures and executives.
And that shouldn't come as any surprise, because even if this isn't about specifically suppressing minority and low-income voters along with students and the elderly, this is still about making it difficult to register to vote and to cast a ballot.
Which is how Republicans win elections, and it's been part of their strategy for at least 35 years.
But don't take it from me, take it from Heritage Foundation and ALEC co-founder Paul Weyrich.
That's exactly what's going on in Alabama, and in Republican controlled states across the country.
Because when people don't, or can't, vote, the oligarchs win.
It's not just time to restore the Voting Rights Act so that states with a history of discrimination, like Alabama and North Carolina, are required to get federal pre-clearance before they make changes to voting laws.
We also must make it easier to register to vote if we truly want our democracy to flourish and to ensure that every person has the ability and opportunity to cast their vote.
States across the country should implement automatic voter registration as Oregon just did, so that people are automatically registered to vote when they register for selective service or receive a driver's license.
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