Voting rights advocates are rightfully celebrating a string of recent voting rights victories in federal courts in North Carolina, Kansas, Wisconsin and Texas.The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (of which Virginia is a part) ruled unanimously in late July that North Carolina’s current voting laws intentionally and unconstitutionally discriminate on the basis of race.Right after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, which freed North Carolina, Virginia and other southern states from the Act’s pre-clearance requirements, the North Carolina legislature acted to make it more difficult for North Carolinians to vote. Before then, North Carolina had same-day registration for all voters, pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, broadly accessible early voting, out-of-precinct provisional voting and flexible voter ID requirements.The Appeals Court found that the legislature actively consulted data that made clear that African Americans disproportionately took advantage of these pro-voting laws, and that it acted deliberately and intentionally to reduce voting by African Americans. The Court’s decision was an appropriate repudiation of this injustice and intentional discrimination..The sad reality of this decision, however, is that it illuminates how much further ahead of Virginia North Carolina was before it passed the post-Shelby legislation declared unconstitutional last week.Here’s how pre-Shelby North Carolina compared to current Virginia voting rules: