Eliza Collins

USA TODAY

The North Carolina NAACP has filed a federal lawsuit against the state for what it alleges is a Republican effort to suppress African-American voters.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, seeks to stop county election boards in North Carolina from canceling voter registrations. Three counties have canceled thousands of voter registrations based off what the NAACP alleges is “a single item of returned mail, sent via a coordinated campaign, led by individuals with GOP ties.”

The NAACP also aims to restore the already canceled registrations before the election.

On a call with reporters Monday, Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, called the cancellations “the worst onslaught against minority voting ... since the days of Jim Crow.”

“The NAACP is defending rights of all North Carolinians to participate in this election,” Barber continued. “We’re taking this emergency step to make sure not a single voter's voice is unlawfully taken away. This is our Selma, and we will not back down and allow this suppression to continue.”

Barber said many of the people whose registrations have been canceled still live at their addresses or have moved nearby within the same county.

The National Voter Registration Act currently says that voter registrations can be canceled if the voter confirms a change in residence in writing. The registration can be automatically canceled if the voter doesn't respond to a notice within two election cycles. The law also prohibits registration cancellations less than 90 days before an election; the NAACP alleges that many of these cancellations have occurred within weeks of Nov. 8.

In at least one county, African Americans were disproportionately affected, accounting for 65% of the voters whose registrations were nixed, despite making up just one fourth of the population.