Thomas Farr

Farr has been accused of voter suppression towards African-American voters.[3][8] In November 2018, Republican Senator Tim Scott opposed Farr's nomination for a federal judgeship, citing a 1991 DOJ memo on Farr's involvement in the 1984 Jesse Helms campaign's alleged voter suppression against African-Americans.[2][9]

In 2010, Farr advised the North Carolina General Assembly in what federal courts termed a "racial gerrymander" of the state's voting districts.[10] Farr was involved with drafting the 2013 North Carolina voter I.D. law and helped legislators evaluate racial data requested from the North Carolina DMV, which showed that black voters disproportionately lacked driver's licenses.[11][12][13] The DMV data also "revealed that African Americans disproportionately used early voting, same-day registration, and out-of-precinct voting", all of which were curtailed by the law, while absentee voting, disproportionately used by white voters, was exempted from the voter ID requirements.[14] Farr defended the voting restrictions in court before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appeals court struck down the law, writing that the law targeted African Americans "with almost surgical precision."[15][16]

Farr represented Republican state legislators in lawsuits related to redistricting and voter identification changes which were struck down by a court as racially biased.[17][15] Newsweek described Farr as having a "history of working on voter suppression...part of a wider Republican effort that critics say disenfranchises African-Americans and the poor."[18]

A 1991 memo by the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division describing alleged suppression of minority voters.

In 1984, Farr was involved in the Jesse Helms Senate campaign. A 1991 memo from the Department of Justice under the George H.W. Bush administration stated that "Farr was the primary coordinator of the 1984 'ballot security' program conducted by the NCGOP and 1984 Helms for Senate Committee. He coordinated several 'ballot security' activities in 1984, including a postcard mailing to voters in predominantly black precincts which was designed to serve as a basis to challenge voters on election day."[3][4]^: 12

Hebert's notes documenting Farr's participation in a planning meeting prior to the postcard mailing.

In 1990, Farr served as the lead legal counsel on Jesse Helms' campaign. The campaign mailed two batches of postcards, totaling about 124,000, "virtually exclusively to black voters"[4]^: 4 warning "that residency requirements were strict and vote fraud was punishable by imprisonment." The first batch was sent "exclusively to the black voters who had a change of address associated with their name",[4]^: 36 while the recipients of the second batch were 93.1% African-American.[4]^: 38

The DOJ sued Helms, saying that the mailers were intended to intimidate African-Americans from voting. As the campaign's legal counsel, Farr defended Helms in the DOJ lawsuit. Farr himself "denied any role in drafting the postcards and said he did not know about them until after the mailers were sent" and was "'appalled' when he found out about them."[18][19][20][21] Gerald Hebert, a former Department of Justice investigator, contradicted Farr's denial, stating that according to "contemporaneous handwritten notes", Farr partook in a meeting planning the postcards.[22][23][13][16] The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund called upon the Senate to further question Farr about his apparent lack of candor.[22][24][25][26] Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the criticisms of Farr “utterly false character assassination nonsense.”[27]