NC’s voter ID law goes to trial. A judge could block it, but that may not be last word

North Carolina’s new voter ID requirement goes to court this week as challengers in a longstanding lawsuit argue it discriminates against Black and Latino voters.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs, who has temporarily blocked the law before, will preside over the trial starting Monday in Winston-Salem.

The case has the potential to block the state’s voter ID requirement before the 2024 election — though an appeal is likely regardless of which way Biggs rules.

The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP first sued the state over its voter ID requirement in 2018, setting in motion a case that has now lasted over five years, ricocheting between appellate courts and conflicting with a similar case at the state level.

In its trial brief, the NAACP argues that the voter ID requirement “was enacted with discriminatory intent” in violation of the U.S. Constitution and “has already had a discriminatory impact on the right of Black and Latino citizens in North Carolina to participate in the political process.”

Republican state legislative leaders, who intervened as defendants in the case, point out that the law offers broad exceptions to voters who do not have an ID. They also reject claims that they intended to discriminate.

“Nothing in the legislative history suggests that the General Assembly used racial voting data to disproportionately target minority voters,” defendants wrote in their trial brief. “... Nor can plaintiffs identify discriminatory remarks in the legislative history for this bill.”

Leading up to the trial, Republican legislative leaders attempted to get several of the NAACP’s new witnesses thrown out. On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld granted that request, in part. He ordered that several planned witnesses from Democracy North Carolina and Vote Riders could not be used at trial.

Voter ID has been in effect since last April following a long string of court cases.

The March primary was the first major test of the law in recent years. Out of 1.8 million voters who participated in the election, nearly 1,200 had to cast a provisional ballot for ID reasons. Nearly 500 of those provisional ballots were not counted.

All in all, over 99.9% of voters showed a valid photo ID when voting in person.

However, these numbers do not address voters who chose not to vote because of the ID requirement.

One of the NAACP’s expert witnesses estimates that over 100,000 voters were deterred from voting due to the voter ID requirement in the 2016 primary election, when the law was briefly in effect.

How did the case get here?

The case began after North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment to require voter ID and the Republican-led legislature passed a bill to implement the requirement.

That law not only required voters to present photo ID to vote, but also allowed voters to challenge other voters for failing to comply with voter ID, and expanded the role of poll observers.

The NAACP sought a preliminary injunction to block the law from taking effect.

Biggs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted the injunction in 2019, writing that the law was likely to “have a racially disproportionate impact in North Carolina by preventing some voters of color from casting their ballots.”

The case was then delayed by arguments about whether House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger could intervene in the case as defendants. The NAACP’s lawsuit had originally only named Gov. Roy Cooper and the State Board of Elections as defendants.

Biggs initially denied the legislative leaders’ request, and the issue went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed them to join the case.

Meanwhile, a separate case on the state level was also targeting voter ID.

In 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court, which at the time had a Democratic majority, struck down the state’s voter ID requirement, with Justice Anita Earls writing “even though the General Assembly had reason to know that African-American voters would be disproportionately affected by (the law), it still chose to pass a law that required the specific IDs African-American voters disproportionately lack.”

Only a few months later, the partisan makeup of the state Supreme Court shifted. In April 2023, the court’s new Republican majority reversed that decision and ruled that voter ID could go into effect.

“This court has traditionally stood against the waves of partisan rulings in favor of the fundamental principle of equality under the law. We recommit to that fundamental principle and begin the process of returning the judiciary to its rightful place as ‘the least dangerous’ branch,” the court wrote.

A few months after that order, the federal case started back up.

The trial begins at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Winston-Salem federal courthouse. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said the trial will take 10 days.