- Critics of North Carolina's voter identification law are asking a federal judge to take note of a recent ruling in an Arizona election case.
- Voter ID supporters and opponents have been waiting for US District Judge Loretta Biggs to issue a ruling in the North Carolina case since a trial conducted in May 2024.
- ID critics argued in a court filing Wednesday that the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision in a case involving two Arizona voter registration laws supports the case against North Carolina's voter ID.
Critics challenging North Carolina’s voter identification law in federal court are asking the judge to take note of a recent ruling from an Arizona election case. Voter ID supporters and opponents have been waiting for a decision in the North Carolina case since a trial last May.
Plaintiffs challenging North Carolina’s 2018 voter ID law filed a new court document Wednesday. They asked US District Judge Loretta Biggs to consider the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes, which “provides additional support for Plaintiffs’ position on the legal standard for proving a claim of intentional discrimination.”
Critics allege that North Carolina lawmakers discriminated against black voters when approving the ID law weeks after voters enshrined a voter ID requirement in the state constitution.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Mi Familia Vota supports Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims in this case,” ID critics argued. “Here, Plaintiffs assert that S.B. 824, North Carolina’s photo voter ID requirement that was passed in 2018, was enacted with discriminatory intent in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and that it has had and will continue to have a discriminatory impact in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.”
ID opponents note that the court must consider the case under a standard set by a 1977 precedent called Arlington Heights.
“Under this standard, Plaintiffs need only demonstrate — with either direct or circumstantial evidence — that discriminatory purpose was one of the motivating factors behind passage of S.B. 824, and ‘invidious discriminatory purpose may often be inferred from the totality of the relevant facts,’” according to the court filing. “Plaintiffs argue here that, even after affording a presumption of good faith to the North Carolina legislature, the evidence before the court points to S.B. 824 having been enacted in part for a discriminatory purpose.”
In Mi Familia Vota, 9th Circuit judges overturned a trial judge’s decision that two Arizona voter registration laws were not enacted with the intent to discriminate.
“Rather than requiring each individual piece of evidence by itself to demonstrate discriminatory intent, the district court should have examined the evidence ‘analyzing “the totality of circumstances,”’ the test required by Arlington Heights,” voter ID critics argued.
“The District Court was also found to have clearly erred when it asked the Plaintiffs to demonstrate a clear ‘nexus’ between Arizona’s ‘history of animosity towards marginalized communities and the Legislature’s enactment of the voting laws.’”
“This Court should find that S.B. 824 was enacted with discriminatory intent in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and Mi Familia Vota confirms that,” the court filing continued.
Little has happened in the North Carolina case in recent months.
State legislative leaders argued in a court filing last August that it was too late for Biggs to issue an order that would block the state’s photo voter identification law for the November 2024 election.
Biggs wrapped up her two-week trial in the federal voter ID case in May 2024. She heard from more than two dozen witnesses over nine days. She conducted a bench trial with no jury.
North Carolina required photo ID from voters during the 2023 municipal elections and during the 2024 primary and general elections. Biggs’ ruling could determine whether voter ID remains in place going forward.
Opponents have labeled the ID law as racially discriminatory. Among those who testified during the trial were left-wing activist the Rev. William Barber and Democratic state Reps. Robert Reives and Marcia Morey. Two former Democratic state senators, Floyd McKissick and Terry Van Duyn, also testified against the ID law.
Republican state legislators approved the ID law in 2018, just weeks after voters agreed to place an ID requirement in the state constitution. Lawyers defending the ID law during the trial pointed out its permissiveness compared to ID requirements in other states. Defenders argued that a law based on racially discriminatory intent would not have allowed voters so many options for casting ballots.
The lawsuit targets three portions of the 2018 voter ID law. First, the suit challenges the ID requirement itself. Second, critics oppose a provision allowing any voter to challenge another voter for failing to comply with the ID rule. Third, the complaint targets provisions expanding the use of partisan poll observers.
Republican state legislative leaders have defended voter ID. The State Board of Elections, with a 3-2 Democratic majority, also filed a brief supporting the ID law.
“Any voter ID law will have some impact when it is implemented,” the state board’s lawyers wrote. “However, Plaintiffs cannot show that S.B. 824 has a substantial enough impact to support this claim. That is because the ameliorative provisions found in S.B. 824 allow any voter to cast a ballot, with or without a photo ID, such that the burdens imposed by the law on voters who lack identification are minimal at best.”
Biggs issued an order in March 2024 denying the State Board of Elections’ October 2021 motion for summary judgment in the more than five-year-old case. The elections board had argued that Biggs should reject the lawsuit without a trial.
State lawmakers joined the case in 2022 after the US Supreme Court confirmed their right to defend the voter ID law.
The federal trial had been scheduled twice before — in January 2021 and January 2022. On both occasions, appeals delayed the case.
A stay issued in December 2021 placed the case in limbo. Plaintiffs challenging the ID law returned to federal court after the state Supreme Court’s April 2023 ruling allowed the ID requirement to move forward.
A 5-2 decision from the Republican-led state high court overturned a December 2022 ruling from the same court. Democrats had held a 4-3 Democratic majority when the court issued its initial ruling. Both decisions involved party-line votes from the justices.
Lawmakers approved the 2018 voter ID law weeks after NC voters enshrined an ID requirement in the state constitution. That amendment has faced its own legal challenge in state courts. A case targeting the amendment sits now with a three-judge Superior Court panel. The voter ID law can stand or fall legally regardless of the case challenging the state constitutional amendment.
Forward Justice filed the federal suit in December 2018 on behalf of the state NAACP and local NAACP chapters.
A year later, on Dec. 31, 2019, Biggs issued a preliminary injunction blocking the voter ID law from taking effect. In a 60-page opinion, Biggs cited North Carolina’s “sordid history of racial discrimination and voter suppression.”
Parts of the law “were impermissibly motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent,” wrote Biggs, appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama.
Nearly one year later, a three-judge 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed Biggs’ decision. Appellate judges determined that the trial court had “abused its discretion” when granting the injunction.
The 4th Circuit judges said Biggs was wrong to factor North Carolina’s earlier 2013 voter ID measure into her decision about the 2018 law.
“The district court here considered the General Assembly’s discriminatory intent in passing the 2013 Omnibus Law to be effectively dispositive of its intent in passing the 2018 Voter-ID Law,” wrote Judge Julius Richardson, an appointee of President Donald Trump. “In doing so, it improperly flipped the burden of proof at the first step of its analysis and failed to give effect to the Supreme Court’s presumption of legislative good faith. These errors fatally infected its finding of discriminatory intent. And when that finding crumbles, the preliminary injunction falls with it.”
Judges Marvin Quattlebaum, a Trump appointee, and Pamela Harris, an Obama appointee, joined Richardson’s opinion.
By the time the 4th Circuit struck down Biggs’ injunction, state courts had moved to block the 2018 voter ID law. The state Supreme Court’s April 2023 decision removed the final state court roadblock against voter ID.
The case already has attracted attention from the nation’s highest court.
Republican legislative leaders asked to intervene in the case to defend the voter ID law. Biggs said no in June 2019. The 4th Circuit also ruled against legislative intervention.
Once the US Supreme Court agreed to hear lawmakers’ arguments for intervention, Biggs issued her stay in December 2021. That order blocked a trial that had been scheduled for January 2022. Biggs put the case on hold pending action from the US Supreme Court “or until further Order of this Court.”
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, by an 8-1 vote, that Republican legislative leaders would be allowed to intervene in the case.