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North Carolina Lawmakers Hope To Repeal Voter Literacy Test

North Carolina's constitution still includes an unenforceable relic of the Jim Crow era — a voter literacy test. Some state lawmakers have started the process again to do away with it. A House judiciary committee voted unanimously on Tuesday for a bipartisan measure that would allow voters to decide next year whether to eliminate that section of the constitution. The voter literacy requirement was added to the constitution in 1900 and used to keep many Black citizens from casting ballots. The 1965 Voting Rights Act made such tests unlawful, but in 1970, North Carolina voters defeated an amendment to remove the section.