North Carolina: Attorney General won’t keep defending state’s voter ID law | Associated Press

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will no longer defend the state’s voter ID law, now that a federal appeals court has ruled it was passed with “discriminatory intent.” A 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel blocked its enforcement last Friday, ruling that the Republican-led General Assembly made changes that targeted black voters more likely to support Democrats. “Attorneys with our office put forward their best arguments but the court found that the law was intentional discrimination and we will not appeal,” Cooper spokeswoman Noelle Talley said in an email. Barring some new court intervention, the appellate ruling means the law’s restrictions will not be in place for this year’s presidential election. The ID mandate is now gone and early voting restored to 17 days, up from 10. Same-day registration during early voting and the partial counting of out-of-precinct ballots resume permanently.

North Carolina: Board Of Elections Scrambles To Undo Voter ID Law | WUNC

Officials with the North Carolina State Board of Elections are scrambling to undo three years of work on the state’s voter identification law ahead of the November election. The move comes after the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday struck down a North Carolina law that would have required a government-issued photo ID to vote in the November election. The panel said the law discriminated against black voters. Governor Pat McCrory and top Republican legislators have promised to appeal the decision.

North Carolina: Appeals court strikes down North Carolina’s voter ID law | The Washington Post

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down North Carolina’s requirement that voters show identification before casting ballots and reinstated an additional week of early voting. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was an overwhelming victory for civil rights groups and the Justice Department that argued the voting law was designed to dampen the growing political clout of African American voters, who participated in record numbers in elections in 2008 and 2012. “We can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the majority.

North Carolina: Appeals court strikes down North Carolina’s voter-ID law | The Washington Post

Voting rights activists scored legal victories in key presidential election states Friday, the most important being a federal appeals court ruling that North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature enacted new voting restrictions in 2013 to intentionally blunt the growing clout of African American voters. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department and civil rights groups. Election law experts consider North Carolina’s voter law one of the nation’s most far-reaching. In Wisconsin, where one federal judge already had eased restrictions on voter-ID requirements, a second judge found that additional elements of the law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) were unconstitutional.

North Carolina: US 4th Circuit overturns voter ID law | News & Observer

Federal appellate judges on Friday struck down a 2013 law limiting voting options and requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls, declaring in an unsparing opinion that the restrictions “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” The three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the law was adopted with “discriminatory intent” despite lawmakers’ claims that the ID provision and other changes were designed to prevent voter fraud. The ruling – which could have implications for voting laws in other states and possibly for the outcome of close races in the swing state of North Carolina – sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, who in April issued a 485-page decision dismissing all claims in the legal challenge.

North Carolina: Voting law changes could put 2016 ballots at risk | Reuters

On Election Day in 2014, Joetta Teal went to work at a polling station in Lumberton, North Carolina. Like all poll workers, she was required to stay until voting booths closed, so she decided to cast her own vote there. That was a mistake, she later discovered. What she didn’t know was that under a 2013 state law she had to vote in the precinct where she lived. The polling station where she voted was not in her precinct, so her vote was not counted. A Reuters review of Republican-backed changes to North Carolina’s voting rules indicates as many as 29,000 votes might not be counted in this year’s Nov. 8 presidential election if a federal appeals court upholds the 2013 law. Besides banning voters from voting outside their assigned precinct on Election Day, the law also prevents them from registering the same day they vote during the early voting period. The U.S. Justice Department says the law was designed to disproportionately affect minority groups, who are more likely to vote out of precinct and use same-day registration. Backers of the law deny this and say it will prevent voter fraud.

North Carolina: Legislative leaders not defendants in Wake County election suit | News & Observer

State legislative leaders may regret fighting against being part of the federal lawsuit that led to their new election maps for Wake County Board of Commissioners and school board being declared unconstitutional. In an article posted online Tuesday in the Carolina Journal, Rep. Paul Stam laments how Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore had been dropped as defendants so their attorneys weren’t in court to defend the maps. But an attorney for the plaintiffs points to how lawmakers didn’t want to be part of the litigation in the first place. Stam tells the Carolina Journal that no one went to bat for the lawmakers who redrew the districts when the case went before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals this year. Stam, an Apex Republican and attorney, notes how the office of state Attorney General Roy Cooper would have been defending the districts if Berger and Moore were still defendants. “In contrast to Europe, which is inquisitorial, the American and English legal systems are called adversarial,” Stam said. “You count on the fact that each side will be represented, so the truth will come out.”

North Carolina: September date set for voter ID state trial | Associated Press

A challenge to North Carolina’s new voter identification requirement will go to trial in state court this fall setting the stage for a possible decision before early in-person voting begins for the big November election. Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan on Monday set Sept. 26 for the trial, which could last a week or two. Morgan asked lawyers in a Wake County courtroom to confirm the Oct. 27 start date for early voting, when perspective voters must show one of several forms of photo ID. A two-week trial would give Morgan less than three weeks to rule. The ID mandate was approved in 2013 and used for the first time in the March primary and again in the June congressional primary.

North Carolina: Voter ID case goes to state court in September | News & Observer

The question of whether North Carolina’s voter ID requirement violates the state Constitution will go to trial in late September, adding more uncertainty to the election process in a presidential year that has left many voters confused about schedules and their districts. Wake County Judge Mike Morgan on Monday signed an order rejecting a request by lawmakers to set the case in front of a three-judge panel or dismiss it altogether. The trial is set to start Sept. 26. Anita Earls, director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a law firm representing challengers of the state’s 2013 voter ID law, said she expected the trial to last about a week. Before Morgan set the schedule, Phil Strach, a Raleigh lawyer representing the legislators and the husband of the state elections director, argued that it would be better to wait until after November.

North Carolina: Legislature changes ballot order for Court of Appeals candidates | News & Observer

If signed by Gov. Pat McCrory, a change in state election law approved in the final hours of the 2016 legislative session would ensure the name of Phil Berger Jr. appears first on the ballot in his race against incumbent Court of Appeals Judge Linda Stephens in November. If not for the legislation, Berger’s name would have appeared below Stephens’ on the November ballot through a random ballot-order method used by the state Board of Elections. Berger, a Republican, is the son of state Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican. The elder Berger voted for the bill that would result in his son’s name being listed first. Numerous studies have shown that being listed first on a ballot can give that candidate at least a slight advantage, especially on down-ballot races like the Court of Appeals race where candidates aren’t as well-known as presidential or gubernatorial candidates, for example.

North Carolina: Bill would force attorney general to defend redistricting, other local acts | Greensboro News & Record

A bill fast-tracked through the N.C. House on Thursday would require the state Attorney General’s Office to defend local acts passed by the General Assembly that are challenged in court. The move comes in the wake of the state’s redistricting of the Greensboro City Council and Wake County Board of Education, which are both being challenged in court. In both cases Attorney General Roy Cooper, the Democratic challenger to Gov. Pat McCrory this November, chose not to defend redistricting laws passed by the legislature’s Republican majority. In the Greensboro council lawsuit, the Guilford County Board of Elections was left to defend the law and initially took no position on its constitutionality.

North Carolina: U.S. Supreme Court to review North Carolina redistricting | The Charlotte Observer

The U.S. Supreme Court will review an appeal by North Carolina to maintain the remapping of its districts this fall – a plan previously described as a “blatant, unapologetic, partisan, gerrymander” that could disfranchise the state’s minority population. The court added the appeal to its calendar Monday. Its decision to address the redistricting plan comes just five months after a three-judge panel rejected a legal challenge filed by attorneys for David Harris of Durham and Christine Bowser of Mecklenburg County. Attorneys argue that remapping of state’s 1st and 12th congressional districts limits the state’s minority representation. Those districts are held by Democrat Reps. G.K. Butterfield and Alma Adams, the state’s only two African-American congressional representatives.

North Carolina: Supreme Court to rule on use of race in redistricting | Associated Press

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Republican lawmakers relied too heavily on race when they redrew North Carolina’s congressional districts to give the GOP a powerful advantage in the swing state. The justices will hear the case in the fall — almost certainly too late to affect November’s elections. But in the years ahead, it could impact partisan efforts to create electoral districts aimed at swaying the balance of power in Congress and in state legislatures. The Supreme Court could consider it together with a similar appeal from Virginia, where challengers say Republicans packed black voters into a dozen statehouse districts, strengthening GOP control of neighboring territories.

North Carolina: Appellate judges skeptical about North Carolina’s voter ID law | Associated Press

Members of a federal appeals court expressed skepticism Tuesday that North Carolina’s 2013 major rewrite to voting laws, requiring photo identification to cast in-person ballots, doesn’t discriminate against minorities. The three-judge panel met Tuesday to hear arguments over whether to overturn an April trial court ruling upholding the law. Judge Henry F. Floyd questioned the timing of the changes — done after Republicans took control of state government for the first time in a century and after the U.S. Supreme Court undid key provisions of the Voting Rights Act — and whether they weren’t done to suppress minority votes for political gain. “It looks pretty bad to me,” Floyd said. But the law’s authors said they were aiming to prevent voter fraud and increase public confidence in elections. “It was not a nefarious thing,” said Thomas A. Farr, an attorney representing the state.

North Carolina: State Faces Tough Questions From Appeals Court on Voting Law | Wall Street Journal

A federal appeals court asked tough questions Tuesday about North Carolina’s Republican-backed law that imposed tighter rules for voting, including a photo identification requirement at the polls. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering legal challenges from the Justice Department, civil rights groups and citizens who allege the North Carolina law illegally discriminated against minority voters. Allison Riggs, a lawyer for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, argued that North Carolina engaged in an unprecedented rollback of voting rights, which intentionally targeted minorities who tend to vote for Democrats. State lawmakers “knew the disparate impact of every one of these provisions,” she said.

North Carolina: Photo ID, voting law heading to an appeals court | Associated Press

Far-reaching voting changes in North Carolina approved by Republicans three years ago and upheld by a federal judge now head to an appeals court that previously sided with those challenging the law on racial grounds. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments Tuesday, just two months after a lower court ruled photo identification requirements to vote in person, early-voting restrictions and other changes violated neither the federal Voting Rights Act nor the Constitution. The appeals court’s decision to accelerate review of the case reinforces the stakes involved with the outcome in an election year, particularly in North Carolina. The presidential battleground state also has big races for governor and U.S. Senate on the fall ballot. “The legislative actions at issue must be analyzed in the context of the high levels of racially polarized voting in North Carolina, where many elections are sensitive to even slight shifts in voting,” lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department wrote in a brief heading into the arguments before three judges in Richmond, Virginia.

North Carolina: How North Carolina’s new district map caused a chaotic congressional primary | The Guardian

North Carolina congresswoman Alma Adams was sitting in a campaign meeting at her headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, in early February, planning for what should have been an easy primary win. No Democratic challengers had declared their candidacy in time for the 15 March election. Victory was all but guaranteed. Before the meeting ended, one of her staffers interrupted with some unexpected news. A panel of three federal judges had ruled that the 12th district’s congressional map – which resembled a serpent slithering across central North Carolina’s cities – was unconstitutional due to racial gerrymandering. The district would need to be redrawn, the judges said. It was a win for racial justice, legal observers said. But the map redrawing that followed – the latest episode in a decades-old legal saga over the district lines – wasn’t a win for voter enfranchisement this election, in this deep blue district where the primary is likely to decide the race. When state lawmakers two weeks later redrew most of the state’s districts, the 70-year-old black Greensboro lawmaker discovered her home was nearly two hours away from the new Charlotte-centric district.

North Carolina: Legislators say redistricting emails, other info protected from public scrutiny | Greensboro News & Record

State legislators say they won’t turn over more information about the new voting districts they drew last year for the Greensboro City Council. The legislators are fighting subpoenas from a group of local residents suing to stop the redistricting because of racial gerrymandering. The new districts are scheduled to take effect for the 2017 election. On Monday, lawyers for the N.C. Attorney General’s Office said the information is protected from public view because of “legislative privilege.” In their filing in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, they said the legislators have given the residents’ attorneys all the information that’s not covered by legislative privilege. The Greensboro residents, who are being represented by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, asked a judge last month to force the legislators to turn over the information.

North Carolina: Federal judges uphold congressional maps | News & Observer

A panel of federal judges Thursday rejected the most recent challenge of North Carolina’s newly drawn congressional districts. In the unanimous decision, the three district judges left open the possibility for a different lawsuit to weigh the question of blatant partisan gerrymandering. The effect is that maps drawn by the legislature’s Republican leadership in February remain valid as voters cast early ballots in the primary election to decide which congressional candidates are on the ballot in November. The ruling came almost four months after the General Assembly redrew congressional lines in a response to a court order declaring two of North Carolina’s districts unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. In March, attorneys for David Harris of Durham and Christine Bowser of Mecklenburg County asked the three-judge panel to reject the new maps as “a blatant, unapologetic partisan gerrymander” that provided no legal remedy to the 2011 maps that were struck down on Feb. 5. The challengers also argued that the new maps intentionally limited minority representation.

North Carolina: Some Durham County voters will receive new primary ballot | News & Observer

In light of finding Durham County elections workers had counted dozens more votes than had actually been cast, the State Board of Elections has decided to scratch 892 provisional ballots and mail out new ballots to those voters more than two months later. In a meeting to finalize the results of the March 15 primary, the board voted unanimously to approve only 147 provisional ballots that could be checked for eligibility and moved to send out new ballots to voters whose ballots could not be verified. The decision came out of a state investigation into discrepancies in the Durham County election primaries that found the state only had physical copies for 980 provisional ballots, despite having approved or partially approved 1,039 provisional ballots to count toward final election totals.

North Carolina: With retention idea blocked, Supreme Court primary goes on | Associated Press

There will be one race on every ballot in North Carolina’s previously unscheduled June 7 primary because the state Supreme Court couldn’t agree whether a law that led a colleague to seek re-election through a new method complied with the state constitution. Justices deadlocked 3-3 this month on a lower court ruling that struck down the law giving Associate Justice Robert Edmunds of Greensboro the option to run alone for a new term in November and try to keep his job based on an up-or-down vote of support. That kept February’s decision of three trial judges intact, thus returning the election to a traditional head-to-head race. Edmunds and three challengers — Sabra Jean Faires of Cary, Michael Morgan of Raleigh and Daniel Robertson of Advance — are candidates on the primary ballot that also will include delayed congressional primaries in most parts of the state. The top two vote-getters advance to the general election.

North Carolina: State judge weighs whether to schedule voter ID trial | Associated Press

Another pending legal challenge to North Carolina’s voter identification requirement is still swimming around in state court, where a judge Friday heard arguments on whether a trial should be scheduled soon or more delays are the proper course. Three consolidated federal lawsuits seeking to overturn the photo ID mandate and other voting changes made by the General Assembly already have been tried, with all the provisions in the 2013 case upheld last month as legal and constitutional. That case is on the fast-track to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with scheduled arguments for next month. The state lawsuit, initially filed in August 2013 by voters and voting-rights groups, focuses solely on the ID requirement as another qualification to vote beyond what the North Carolina Constitution demands and is unlawful. Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan put the proceedings on hold last fall until after photo ID was required for the first time during the March 15 primary.

North Carolina: 4th Circuit court sets NC voter ID hearing | News & Observer

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals set June 21 to hear arguments in the North Carolina voting rights case. The appeal was filed by the NAACP and other organizations representing voters who challenged the extensive elections law overhaul in 2013. The new law established a voter ID requirement, curbed the number of days voters could cast ballots early, eliminated out-of-precinct voting and stopped letting people register to vote and cast a ballot on the same day.

North Carolina: Federal Judge Upholds North Carolina Voter Rules | The New York Times

A federal judge on Monday upheld sweeping Republican-backed changes to election rules, including a voter identification provision, that civil rights groups say unfairly targeted African-Americans and other minorities. The ruling could have serious political repercussions in a state that is closely contested in presidential elections. The opinion, by Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court in Winston-Salem, upheld the repeal of a provision that allowed people to register and vote on the same day. It also upheld a seven-day reduction in the early-voting period; the end of preregistration, which allowed some people to sign up before their 18th birthdays; and the repeal of a provision that allowed for the counting of ballots cast outside voters’ home precinct. It also left intact North Carolina’s voter identification requirement, which legislators softened last year to permit residents to cast ballots, even if they lack the required documentation, if they submit affidavits. The ruling could have significant repercussions in North Carolina, a state that Barack Obama barely won in 2008, and that the Republican Mitt Romney barely won four years later.

North Carolina: Election law case to get quick review | News & Observer

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a quick review of the recent ruling on North Carolina’s election law overhaul. In an order filed on Thursday, Clerk Patricia S. Connor stated that attorneys should have all their briefs submitted to the appellate court by June 14. Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine who has been following the case, said it was possible that under such a schedule a hearing could be held in July and a ruling issued before the November general elections. But most expect any ruling to be challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and what would happen there is unclear.

North Carolina: Rights groups appeal ruling upholding voter ID law | Reuters

Civil rights groups and churches opposed to sweeping changes to North Carolina’s election rules said on Tuesday they would ask an appeals court for a reversal after a federal judge upheld provisions they argue will suppress minority votes at the polls in November. The ruling late on Monday was highly anticipated in a presidential election year in a state that had close results for the White House in 2008 and 2012, and it received praise from the voting law’s Republican backers. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder in Winston-Salem said the state could require voters to show approved photo identification at the polls, one of a number of provisions in the law that challengers have said targets groups of people who typically support Democratic candidates.

North Carolina: How North Carolina became the epicenter of the voting rights battle | The Washington Post

Civil rights groups appealed a federal judge’s ruling in North Carolina upholding what they call a “monster voter suppression law,” while election experts said Tuesday that the closely watched case will have legal ramifications for voting across the country this presidential election year. North Carolina, a battleground state, is considered an epicenter for the nationwide battle over voting rights because its controversial 2013 election law is one of the strictest in the nation. “If North Carolina can get away with this kind of rollback, I suspect we will see other rollbacks in other states,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine and the author of “The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown.” After two trials, the voting law was upheld late Monday by federal judge Thomas D. Schroeder of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. His decision was praised by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who said in a statement that “this ruling further affirms that requiring a photo ID in order to vote is not only common-sense, it’s constitutional.”

North Carolina: Elections law ruling to be appealed | The Charlotte Observer

While still poring over a federal judge’s 485-page ruling upholding North Carolina’s recent election law overhaul on Tuesday, attorneys for the voters and civil rights organizations challenging the changes quickly filed notice of plans to appeal. Judge Thomas Schroeder’s opinion – one of the first to come down since the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act – is being scrutinized by many as a test of what obligations states have to make sure their citizens have access to the ballot box. Schroeder’s ruling, which was released to the public Monday evening, upheld sweeping voting changes – requiring North Carolina voters to have one of six forms of photo identification, curbing the number of days for early voting, prohibiting voters from registering and casting a ballot the same day, and banning out-of-precinct voting. North Carolina Republicans, who shepherded the changes through the 2013 legislative session, describe the cutbacks, new prohibitions and ID provision as common sense measures designed to prevent voter fraud. There are few documented cases of voter fraud. Challengers of the law described the measures as designed and adopted to disenfranchise African-American, Latino and college-age voters – constituencies more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.

North Carolina: Federal judge who backed limits on early ballots upholds voter ID requirement | The Charlotte Observer

A federal judge has upheld North Carolina’s voter ID law in a ruling posted Monday evening. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder issued a 485-page ruling dismissing all claims in the challenge to the state’s sweeping 2013 election law overhaul. Schroeder, a George W. Bush appointee, also upheld portions of the 2013 law that cut the number of days people could vote early, eliminated same-day registration and voting and prohibits people from casting a ballot outside their precinct. The decision comes nearly three months after a trial on the ID portion of the law. Schroeder noted that North Carolina had “become progressive nationally” by permitting absentee voting, having early voting for 17 days before the Election Day, a lengthy registration period, out of precinct voting on Election Day and a pre-registration program for 16-year-olds. “In 2013, North Carolina retrenched,” Schroeder said in his opinion. Ultimately, though, Schroeder said the state had provided “legitimate state interests” in making the changes and the challengers failed to demonstrate that the law was unconstitutional.

North Carolina: Experts: Shifting demographics make case for redistricting reform | WRAL

North Carolina’s growing populations mean gerrymandered districts drawn for partisan advantage could backfire on their sponsors, a pair of University of North Carolina professors said Tuesday. Rebecca Tippett, director of Carolina Demography at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Mark Nance, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, spoke at a news conference sponsored by Rep. Duane Hall, D-Wake, and the NC Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. The coalition has been pushing lawmakers to create an independent commission to draw the geographic districts in which members of the U.S. House, the state House and the state Senators run. North Carolina has faced frequent lawsuits over its voting districts, including one in which the federal courts ruled this spring that two of the state’s 13 congressional districts were so gerrymandered as to be unconstitutional.