5 years after federal suit, North Carolina voter ID trial set to begin

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo voter identification law will go to trial Monday, with arguments expected to focus on whether the requirement unlawfully discriminates against Black and Hispanic citizens or legitimate state interests serves to increase public confidence in the elections.

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

This lawsuit, along with similar lawsuits in state courts, delayed implementation of the requirement until last year’s municipal elections. The 1.8 million voters who cast ballots during the March primaries also had to comply. State election data showed that fewer than 500 provisional ballots ultimately did not count due to ID-related issues in the primaries.

In November’s general election — with races for president, governor and other statewide seats — turnout could be three times greater than in the primaries. And the nation’s ninth-largest state is a presidential battleground where statewide races are often close.

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

The NAACP attorneys argue that the voter ID requirement, along with two other voting-related provisions in the 2018 law, violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act in part because lawmakers enacted it with discriminatory intent.

In a pretrial brief, attorneys for the civil rights group’s state and local chapters cite data showing that Black and Latino voters are more than twice as likely to lack a valid photo ID than white voters. They plan to bring in witnesses who will say they experienced voting problems during the March primary.

“If relief is not forthcoming, thousands of North Carolina residents will similarly have their right to vote unconstitutionally curtailed,” the NAACP attorneys wrote. They also said evidence will show that North Carolina lawmakers rushed through the legislation — just weeks after voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring photo ID — without considering its impact on minority voters.

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

They point out that the law significantly expanded the number of eligible IDs compared to what was approved in a 2013 voter ID law that was found discriminatory by federal judges. Free IDs are provided by county elections offices and the Department of Motor Vehicles, and people who do not have a photo ID at the polls must have their vote counted if they fill out an exception form or turn in their ID to election officials before the finals.

“The General Assembly enacted (the law) after the people of North Carolina directed the Legislature to enact a voter ID law. The bipartisan legislation had no discriminatory intent, and plaintiffs cannot overcome the Legislature’s presumption of good faith,” attorneys for House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger wrote in a brief. Preventing voter fraud is also a legitimate state interest for the law, the lawyers wrote. However, voter ID fraud is rare nationally.

Biggs, who was nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, has already ruled numerous times in this case.

In late 2019, she issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law, saying it was tainted because the 2013 law had been rejected on similar grounds of racial bias. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision, writing that she had placed too much emphasis on the General Assembly’s past conduct in its review of the 2018 law. When Biggs refused to let Berger and Moore join the lawsuit as defendants, they appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately sided with them in 2022.

Biggs opened the door to a lawsuit when the state Supreme Court ruled that the photo ID law was consistent with the state constitution.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states have laws that require or require identification at polling places, with 21 requiring photo ID.