Plaintiffs in North Carolina voter ID case want preclearance for election law changes

Both sides made closing arguments Monday in a federal court case that could decide if the state’s voter ID law continues as is.

Attorney John Freedman said the state’s photo ID requirement is part of a plan by North Carolina Republicans to consolidate their power through voter suppression targeting minorities. Freedman, representing his plaintiffs, the state NAACP, cited several cases over the last decade where GOP voting measures have been found to be unconstitutional along racial or partisan lines. 

And he offered a solution.

In his closing argument, Freedman called for North Carolina to be placed under a preclearance requirement. That’s a part of the Voting Rights Act that passed during the Civil Rights era. A section of the act required that voting laws in places with a history of voting discrimination had occurred to get a review from the federal government for proposed changes to their election laws.

North Carolina as a whole was not under preclearance, but many counties, including Guilford, were. That ended with a 2013 Supreme Court decision.

Mary Carla Babb, an attorney for the North Carolina Department of Justice, told Judge Loretta Biggs that the plaintiffs did not prove that the voter ID law had a disparate impact on minorities, as the lawsuit claims. Instead, she said, North Carolina’s law mirrors states with similar laws that were found to be constitutional. She said the judge should deny all claims. 

The photo ID requirement was in place in the November municipal elections and the March primary. David Thompson, an attorney for the legislative defendants, said in his closing argument that there were few problems despite more than 2 million votes cast.