Election activist Mitchell seeks protective order against Democracy NC

Conservative election activist Cleta Mitchell has asked a federal court for a protective order against left-of-center activist group Democracy NC. Mitchell argues that ideological opponents hope to use a legal deposition to gather information they can use against her election integrity work.

Mitchell attracted national attention for her legal work supporting President Donald Trump in the weeks after he lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden in 2020.

Democracy NC targeted Mitchell in its lawsuit challenging a provision in Senate Bill 747, an election reform law North Carolina’s General Assembly approved in 2023. The suit challenged a provision related to same-day voter registration.

The activist group indicated that it believed Mitchell had a role in the General Assembly’s decision to enact the challenged provision.

Paperwork filed in federal court Tuesday indicated that Mitchell agreed to sit for a deposition on Wednesday. Yet Mitchell filed a motion “for entry of a protective order limiting the areas of examination” or “alternatively limiting the dissemination and use of any such testimony she may be required to give on the areas at issue.”

“Cleta Mitchell is a prominent attorney and national election integrity advocate, who had an exceptionally limited role with respect to SB 747, namely meeting with a small group of state senators once to discuss a litany of potential changes to state election law,” according to a memorandum filed along with Mitchell’s motion. “Nevertheless, plaintiffs seek to depose Ms. Mitchell about any of her advocacy work engaged in anywhere in the United States over a period of decades.”

“While Ms. Mitchell has agreed to be deposed in this matter, the breadth of examination sought by plaintiffs exceeds that allowed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for a non-party, like Ms. Mitchell, especially considering the First Amendment concerns raised by the wide-ranging inquisition sought by her ideological opponents,” the memo continued.

Mitchell founded the Election Integrity Network, serves as senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and chairs the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

In a separate document, Mitchell described her role in the development of SB 747.

“In 2023, I met once with a group of three state senators concerning myriad potential changes to North Carolina election law along with two other election integrity advocates — James Womack of NCEIT and Jay DeLancy of the Voter Integrity Project,” Mitchell declared. “While potential changes to same day voter registration (‘SDR’) may have been among the numerous topics discussed in that meeting, if SDR were raised or discussed by any of the election integrity advocates present (and I do not recall if it was), it would have been by Mr. Womack (and perhaps Mr. DeLancy), but not by me.”

Womack believed “same day registrants should vote by provisional ballot, but this is not the path that the General Assembly adopted in its legislation,” Mitchell wrote. “I, however, did not discuss any potential changes related to drafting or enacting the same day registration (‘SDR’) provisions of SB 747 with any legislators, or their staffers, in that meeting or at any time prior to passage of SB 747.”

“The Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, publicly and falsely identified me in his veto statement at the time of his veto of SB 747, stating incorrectly that I had been a primary advocate for SB 747, which is not true,” Mitchell added.

“Since enactment of SB 747, I have become actively focused on noncitizen voting and have talked to many people across the country about the perils of SDR as it relates to noncitizen voting and college student voting. But neither of those were discussed by me with legislators regarding SB 747,” Mitchell wrote.

Deposition questions “regarding matters far beyond the scope of this litigation” would be “entirely too broad,” Mitchell argued.

“Such questioning would also be highly invasive of my public policy work and would likely require disclosure of propriety information and would invade my First Amendment associational rights regarding such advocacy,” she wrote. “It further threatens to dissuade individuals and entities from seeking my advice and involvement regarding these public policy issues in the future if my advice is the subject of inquiry in unrelated litigation where neither they nor I are parties.”

Mitchell also focused on the organizations pushing the lawsuit.

“The plaintiffs in this case are all organizations that engage in public policy advocacy on issues, matters, and policies in direct opposition to my election integrity work,” she declared. “Indeed, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs in this case — the Southern Coalition for Social Justice — represented plaintiffs who sued the Public Interest Legal Foundation in LULAC v. Public Interest Legal Foundation, which has since been settled”.

“I am one of the founders and chair the board of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and was well aware of the harassing and intrusive nature of that litigation at the time,” Mitchell wrote. “Due to my public profile, plaintiffs’ proposed questioning would further expose me to potential harassment, threats, and efforts at intimidation. I have been and continue to be the target of threats and harassment because of my work on election integrity,”

“Plaintiffs are aware that my role in the subject litigation barely exists but are insistent upon questioning me upon matters well beyond the subject matter, facts, parties, and time period of this lawsuit,” she declared.

A trial in the Democracy NC lawsuit is scheduled for August 2025.

The complaint is one of three active lawsuits targeting the same “undeliverable mail provision” in SB 747. US District Judge Thomas Schroeder issued an injunction in January blocking the challenged provision from taking effect.

The State Board of Elections then adopted temporary rules designed to address Schroeder’s concerns. Those rules are scheduled to remain in effect throughout the rest of the 2024 election cycle.