5 years after a federal lawsuit, North Carolina voter ID trial is set to begin

RALEIGH, North Carolina – A federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo voter ID law goes to trial Monday, with arguments expected to focus on whether the requirement illegally discriminates against black and Hispanic citizens or serves legitimate state interests to increase public confidence in elections.

The non-jury trial in Winston-Salem begins more than five years after the state NAACP and several local chapters sued over the voter ID law enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in late 2018.

This litigation, along with similar lawsuits in state courts, 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 ballots were cast because of identity-related issues in the primary, which ultimately did not count.

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 presidential battleground where statewide races are often tight.

A favorable NAACP ruling from U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs could block the requirement in the fall. The trial is expected to last several days, with Biggs already signaling in a document that she will not immediately rule from the courtroom.

NAACP lawyers say the voter ID requirement, along with two other voting-related provisions in the 2018 law, violate the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, in part because lawmakers enacted them with discriminatory intent. .

In a pretrial report, lawyers for the state and local chapters of the civil rights group cite 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.

“In the absence of relief, thousands of North Carolinians will similarly have their right to vote unconstitutionally abridged,” NAACP lawyers wrote. They also said the evidence will show that North Carolina lawmakers passed the legislation quickly — just weeks after voters approved a constitutional amendment mandating photo identification — without considering its impact on minority voters.

Lawyers representing Republican legislative leaders and State Election Board members defending the law in court said in briefs that the rules impose only a minimal burden on voters.

They point out that the law greatly expanded the number of qualifying identification documents compared to what was passed in a 2013 voter ID law, which federal judges found 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.

“The General Assembly enacted (the law) after the people of North Carolina mandated the legislature to create a voter ID law. The bipartisan legislation did not have discriminatory intent and plaintiffs cannot overcome the presumption of legislative good faith,” lawyers for House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger wrote in a brief. Preventing voter fraud is also a legitimate state interest under the law, the lawyers wrote. Nationwide, however, voter ID fraud is rare.

Biggs, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama, has spoken frequently in this case.

In late 2019, she issued an injunction blocking implementation of the law, saying it was tainted because the 2013 law had been overturned 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. When Biggs refused to allow Berger and Moore to join the suit as defendants , they appealed, and the US Supreme Court finally sided with them in 2022.

Biggs opened the door to a trial when the state Supreme Court ruled the photo ID law compatible with the state constitution.

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.