WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina – The trial of a federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s new voter ID law finally began Monday, with a civil rights group alleging that its photo requirement illegally harms Black and Latino voters.
The non-jury trial began more than five years after the state NAACP and several local chapters sued over the 2018 law, saying the photo requirement and two other voting-related provisions violate the U.S. Constitution — because lawmakers enacted them with intent. discriminatory – and the Voting Rights Act.
The litigation, along with a similar lawsuit in state court, delayed implementation of the requirement until last year’s municipal elections. The 1.8 million voters who voted in the March primaries also had to comply. State election data showed that fewer than 500 provisional votes were not counted in the primary due to identity issues.
The NAACP plaintiffs argue that some voters have already been “caught in the traps of the law” or have been deterred from going to the polls, attorney Kathleen Roblez said during opening statements.
“This case is about impermissible and intentional racial discrimination,” Roblez told U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs, adding that the requirement “has already produced a discriminatory outcome for Black and brown voters,” who she said are less likely to possess qualified identity documents.
But a lawyer representing Republican legislative leaders who helped enact the law said it is one of the most permissive voter ID requirements among the states that have passed them, with free IDs available and exceptions for voters who cannot readily obtain them. Lawmakers passed the law over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto just weeks after voters approved a constitutional amendment mandating photo identification.
“A legislature determined to discriminate would not have created all these exceptions,” said David Thompson, one of the Republican leaders’ lawyers, in a Winston-Salem courtroom, where the trial is expected to last several days. “The General Assembly was forced by the people of North Carolina to enact a voter ID law.”
Biggs has already signaled that he will not rule immediately from the bench. A favorable ruling for the NAACP could block the requirement in the fall. The November general election – with contests for president, governor and other state seats – could see turnout three times higher than in the primaries. And the nation’s ninth-largest state is a likely presidential battleground where statewide races are often close.
Roblez said it is suspicious to cite the constitutional amendment to justify passing the voter ID law because it was put to a vote by members of the General Assembly at a time when many legislative districts have been declared by federal judges to have illegal racial gerrymanders.
Roblez said the NAACP will present data showing that Black and Latino voters are twice as likely to lack a qualifying photo ID as white voters. They plan to bring in witnesses who will say they found voting problems in the March primary. Thompson said that in total numbers, not percentages, there are more white voters who do not have such identification.
Thompson, who represents House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, and a state attorney representing members of the State Board of Elections who also defends the law in court, said the rules impose only one minimum burden on voters.
The law greatly expanded the number of qualifying IDs compared with what was passed in a 2013 voter ID law that was used briefly until federal judges found it discriminatory. Free identifications are provided by county election offices and the Division of Motor Vehicles, and people who do not have photo identification at the polls must have their votes counted if they fill out an exception form or bring their identification to election officials before the count. Final.
Republican Party leaders also argue that the General Assembly had legitimate state interests in passing the law: to build voter confidence in state elections and to prevent voter fraud. Still, nationwide voter ID fraud is rare.
State NAACP President Deborah Maxwell, the plaintiffs’ first witness, testified that the ID requirement makes it more difficult to vote and forced her group to allocate additional resources to ensure registered voters have qualified identification. She said free IDs from government offices open only during the week do not help workers who only have weekends free.
Biggs, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama, issued an injunction in late 2019 blocking enforcement of the law, saying it was tainted because the 2013 law had been struck down on similar grounds of racial bias. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its decision, writing that it had placed too much emphasis on the General Assembly’s past conduct in evaluating the 2018 law.
In a separate state case, the state Supreme Court last year upheld the 2018 law, allowing the State Board of Elections to implement it months later. The now Republican-controlled court reversed an earlier Supreme Court ruling that struck down the law when Democrats held a majority of seats on the court.
Thirty-six states have laws that request or require identification at the polls, 21 of which require photo identification, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
