You Can't Miss This: Anita Earls and Allison Riggs Headline You Can Vote Event

When: Wednesday, November 13, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Where:  Home of Sherwin Suddreth & Morris West, Wrightsville Beach

Years of anti-democratic gerrymandering and voter suppression in North Carolina may be on the may be on the verge of reversal due in part to the efforts of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. The SCSJ was founded by Civil Rights attorney and now-NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.

Justice Earls will appear at a unique fundraising event on November 13th for the nonpartisan You Can Vote group, which is dedicated to voter registration, education and turnout. You Can Vote has been active in New Hanover County since 2018, and has demonstrated its effectiveness in voter registration and education.

Justice Earls was elected to the NC Supreme Court in 2018 with the enthusiastic support of New Hanover Democrats and is said to be on some short lists for the US Supreme Court in the event that a Democratic President is elected in 2020.

Justice Earls will be joined at the You Can Vote event by SCSJ's Chief Counsel for Voting Rights, Allison Riggs. Allison has worked for SCSJ since 2009 and has represented state NCAAP conferences in Virginia, Florida, Texas and North Carolina. 

Allison's accomplishments are many: While she was still at law school in Florida, she worked on an initiative that resulted in an amendment to the Florida Constitution that restored voting rights to Florida felons who had finished serving their sentences. At SCSJ, she argued League of Women Voters v. North Carolina​ at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which resulted in a holding by the court that North Carolina's voter ID law discriminated against minorities "with almost surgical precision." She has argued several gerrymandering cases, including a Supreme Court argument in Common Cause v. Rucho. The Rucho case considered North Carolina's extreme partisan gerrymandering and resulted in the Supreme Court's notorious decision holding that partisan gerrymandering claims are "nonjusticiable" in Federal Courts. Rucho, and cases like it, opened the door to the recent progress in state courts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where partisan gerrymandering is been challenged on grounds that it violates state constitutions.

At the age of 36, Riggs has already racked up a lifetime of accomplishments. You can get a sense of what Allison's work life is like in this feature article in TeenVogue magazine. 

​This is a unique opportunity to meet  leaders on the forefront of expanding voting rights in North Carolina. Do you have a daughter who has a passion for Social Justice? You must bring her to this event!  

Click here for additional information and to RSVP.

Best, 

Richard Poole, Chair