Asian, Latino groups working with Elias seek to intervene in GOP elections lawsuit

Two activist groups represented by Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm want to intervene in a lawsuit Republican groups filed against the State Board of Elections. The suit accuses election officials of ignoring a 2023 state law requiring removal from the voting rolls of noncitizens identified through jury questionnaires.

An elections board spokesman labeled the Republicans’ accusations “categorically false.”

Now North Carolina Asian Americans Together and El Pueblo, represented by the Elias Law Group, have filed a motion in Wake County Superior Court to intervene as defendants in the case.

“Plaintiffs seek to compel a rushed, systematic purge of the voter rolls just weeks before voting in the 2024 general election begins,” lawyers for the two groups wrote in the motion dated Thursday. “Plaintiffs demand this extraordinary relief based on nothing more than their unfounded belief that state election officials are ‘refusing to comply with and implement’ a new state law that requires county boards to consider whether individuals who self-identified as non-citizens on juror questionnaires should be removed from the voter rolls.”

“But, as Plaintiffs themselves admit, the process of investigating and confirming the citizenship status of such individuals takes 90 days, and Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit only 52 days after the law went into effect,” the motion continued. “That timeline alone makes it impossible for the Court to declare that Defendants violated the law. Moreover, federal law prohibits the state from systematically removing voters from the rolls this late in the election cycle.”

“Nonetheless, Plaintiffs ask this Court to order state election officials to expedite the removal of purported non-citizens on a rushed timeline that would not allow time for those officials to confirm voters’ citizenship status before purging them from the rolls,” the proposed intervenors argued. “Such relief, in addition to being inconsistent with state and federal law, would create a severe risk of disenfranchising lawful voters through no fault of their own just days before voting begins on September 6.”

The Asian and Latino groups seek “to protect the fundamental voting rights of their constituents and community members in North Carolina, as well as their organizational interests, which would be impaired if Plaintiffs succeed,” the document continued.

More than 130,000 North Carolinians naturalized as citizens since 2013 “face a particularly acute threat from Plaintiffs’ effort to force a rushed removal of all voters who self-identified as non-citizens at some point in time,” the motion argued.

“Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that Defendants must conduct individually specific voter registration list maintenance efforts for people who have self-identified as non-citizens after their receipt of jury summonses,” according to the Republicans’ complaint, filed Aug. 22 in Wake County Superior Court. Section 44 of Senate Bill 747, approved over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto in 2023, required the review.

Republicans cited a February 2024 report from state budget officials that “approximately 325,000 ‘unauthorized’ immigrants were residing in the state.”

“Safeguards related to non-citizen voting are particularly salient during this election cycle given the unprecedented millions of people who have illegally immigrated into the United States – apparently relocating, in many cases, to North Carolina,” Republicans’ lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

“Assertions in the lawsuit that the State Board is refusing to comply with Section 44 of Session Law 2023-140 are categorically false,” elections board spokesman Patrick Gannon wrote in an email to Carolina Journal. 

Republicans’ accusations “will undermine voter confidence on an entirely false premise,” Gannon added.

Elections board staff “have worked diligently” with Superior Court clerks across the state to comply with the law, Gannon wrote to CJ. Based on information clerks submitted this month, the board has identified nine people on voter rolls who were excused from jury duty because they said they were not US citizens.

“If a check of state and federal databases shows any of those nine individuals have not obtained citizenship, the State Board will send them letters informing the registrants of the agency’s findings and invite them, if not U.S. citizens, to cancel their registrations to comply with the law,” Gannon wrote.

The elections board must use this “method of compliance” this year because federal law blocks the state from removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of an election. That deadline passed on Aug. 7, Gannon explained.

The juror voter maintenance provision led to one of two lawsuits state and national Republican groups filed within a week against the North Carolina elections board.

In the second suit, GOP groups accused the elections board of failing to require identification to prove citizenship. The RNC and the NCGOP said that by violating the Help America Vote Act, and not checking the identification of approximately 225,000 voters, the agency opened the door for noncitizens to vote. 

The lawsuit asks for an impossible solution, Gannon told CJ. He added that despite being aware of their alleged claims months ago, the plaintiffs waited until two weeks before the start of voting to seek a court-ordered program to remove thousands of existing registered voters.

“Federal law itself prevents such removal programs if they take place after the 90th day before a federal election, which was August 7,” he told CJ. “So, the lawsuit is asking for a rapid-fire voter removal program that violates federal law.”