North Carolina: Legislators complete voting map redraw; congressional primaries pushed back | Associated Press

Legislators met a Friday deadline to complete a court-ordered rewrite of North Carolina’s illegally gerrymandered congressional voting map, all the while looking ahead to further legal challenges. One legal decision quickly went against the Republican lawmakers, who still defend the previous boundaries as fair and legal. The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday refused the state’s request to keep using district lines from the 2012 and 2014 elections while the lower-court order is appealed. The denial means the state is on track to hold congressional primaries June 7 under the new map. Had the Supreme Court sided with the state, the congressional primary would have remained March 15 as previously scheduled. The state House gave final approval to the new map dividing the state’s 13 U.S. House seats after federal judges earlier this month declared the old map was illegally gerrymandered by race. Challengers had complained that legislative Republicans drew the previous congressional lines to pack black voters in two districts, leaving the rest more white and more favorable to the GOP.

North Carolina: Poll worker training highlights voter ID, many Election Day tasks | Winston-Salem Journal

Poll worker training for the March primary kicked off last week in Forsyth County, and for seasoned precinct officials, most of the information is familiar. But one element is new for everyone: voter ID. By the end of the month, more than 300 precinct officials will have attended the class, which covers everything from voting machine setup and voter check-in to provisional ballots and photo identification requirements. The class is mandatory for chief judges and judges, the precinct officials who run the polling places on Election Day. In about two and a half hours, Forsyth elections office employees hit the highlights from the State Board of Elections’ voting site guide and the county’s poll worker manual, which contains about 100 pages of instructions and forms.

North Carolina: Supreme Court Won’t Intervene in North Carolina Election Fight | The New York Times

The United States Supreme Court declined late Friday to stay a lower court ruling that has forced North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature to redraw its congressional electoral maps on the grounds that the original maps amounted to racial gerrymandering. As a result, the state must now follow a contingency plan, also devised by Republican lawmakers, that tries to comply with the lower court’s ruling by making significant changes to the boundaries of the some of the state’s 13 congressional districts. The changes take effect less than one month before the originally scheduled March 15 primary, which has forced the legislature to set up a second election dedicated exclusively to the congressional primaries, which will now take place June 7. The contingency plan was approved by the state legislature on Friday, hours before the Supreme Court announced that it had rejected North Carolina Republicans’ application for a stay. But the approval of the contingency plan came over the strenuous objection of Democrats, who claimed that the new congressional maps were hyperpartisan — giving Republicans 10 safe districts to the Democrats’ three — and still failed to protect black voters’ interests.

North Carolina: House sets congressional primary on June 7; Senate OKs new map | News & Observer

The drama around the state’s congressional districts got a confusing new chapter Thursday with a proposed reshuffling of the state’s primary elections. The state House voted not to proceed with the congressional primary March 15 and instead hold it June 7, effectively hitting the restart button on those campaigns. All other issues on the ballot – including races for governor and a statewide $2 billion bond issue – still would be decided March 15. But in a major change, the House proposal also said no runoff elections would be held in March or June. Currently, if no candidate gets 40 percent of the vote, a second primary is held. But if this change is enacted, the final winner would be the top vote-getter in the initial vote this year, no matter how many candidates compete.

North Carolina: Judges rule out up-or-down vote for state Supreme Court | The Charlotte Observer

A three-judge panel has decided a new option for choosing members of the North Carolina Supreme Court is unconstitutional. Lawyers were alerted Thursday to the judges’ ruling striking down the 2015 law creating “retention elections.” The Superior Court judges — Anna Mills Wagoner, Lisa Bell and Benjamin Alford — heard oral arguments earlier this week in a lawsuit challenging the concept. The law gives most sitting justices the option to be re-elected to additional eight-year terms without head-to-head matchups with challengers. Instead, the justice can choose to be elected in an up-or-down vote. It’s supposed to be used by Associate Justice Bob Edmunds for the first time this November.

North Carolina: Republicans propose major changes to congressional districts | News & Observer

Republican legislators’ proposed changes to North Carolina’s congressional boundaries dramatically reshape two districts a panel of federal judges found unconstitutional. But the proposed map also changes each of the state’s 13 congressional districts, some of them strikingly. Two House members would no longer live in the districts they represent, although by law that isn’t necessary. The 13th District, now anchored in the Triangle, would move across the state. And the serpentine 12th District would become the most compact. But one thing would not change. According to voting statistics released for the proposed districts, three would strongly favor a Democrat, while the other 10 lean Republican. GOP lawmakers say they want to keep the existing 10-3 partisan split.

North Carolina: Lawmakers agree to redraw lines for 12th Congressional District | Associated Press

It may be Thursday or Friday before North Carolina’s Legislature releases maps of what the state’s new congressional districts could look like. Lawmakers voted Tuesday to move ahead with criteria for re-drawing the lines after a panel of judges ruled that two districts, the 1st and the 12th, which includes 250,000 people in Mecklenburg County, are unconstitutional because they were drawn along racial lines. The state Redistricting Committee voted Tuesday not to use race as a criteria in drawing the new district lines.

North Carolina: Would delaying NC’s election violate military voters’ rights? | Fayetteville Observer

A delay in this year’s primary elections – for which absentee voting has begun – will disenfranchise overseas military personnel and other North Carolinians voting by absentee ballot, Jerry Reinoehl of Fayetteville said on Monday at a statewide public hearing. The state’s congressional districts should not be changed, he said. The districts should be revised, said Wanda Lawrence of Fayetteville, and the March 15 primary elections delayed if needed in order to protect the constitutional rights of the people living in two districts that a panel of federal judges recently ruled are unconstitutionally unfair. Those two arguments and others were made Monday during a statewide public hearing held at Fayetteville Technical Community College and five other locations on how to revise northeast North Carolina’s 1st and central North Carolina’s 12th congressional districts.

North Carolina: Voices fall along partisan lines at statewide redistricting hearings | News & Observer

The prospect of quickly redrawing two of North Carolina’s congressional districts to comply with a federal court order lurched to an uncertain future on Monday. Amid a winter storm that may have hampered attendance, members of a joint legislative redistricting committee held a hearing simultaneously at six places across the state, connected by video conferencing. A seventh site in Greensboro was closed because of the weather. The committee expects to begin redrawing the 1st and 12th congressional districts Tuesday and Wednesday, and then hold a two-day special session for the full General Assembly to vote on them Thursday and Friday – unless the U.S. Supreme Court says they don’t need to. Republican legislative leaders call the process a contingency measure as they hope Chief Justice John Roberts will put on hold a federal three-judge panel’s order that gave the state two weeks to come up with new districts. Roberts has given the plaintiffs, who sued to challenge the districts as racial gerrymanders, until Tuesday afternoon to respond to the state’s motion for a stay. Meanwhile, the three-judge panel’s Friday deadline looms.

North Carolina: Scalia’s death could have quick impact on redistricting case | News & Observer

As the political battles heated up over who should replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers familiar with North Carolina’s redistricting case and other high-profile lawsuits took time on Sunday to weigh what impact the conservative jurist’s death might have on their cases. The North Carolina redistricting case, which invalidated the state’s 1st and 12th congressional districts, is one that could see a different outcome now, legal analysts speculate. Some analysts say Scalia’s death makes it much more likely that North Carolina’s March 15 primary elections will be delayed – at least in the congressional races. Until a new justice is appointed – and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised a delay for anyone President Barack Obama nominates – there could be a succession of 4-to-4 vote standoffs among the remaining justices. In such cases where there is a tie, the lower court ruling stands as if the high court had never heard the case. But as has been proven often during the two weeks since the federal court ruling describing North Carolina’s 1st and 12th districts as racial gerrymanders, there are few simple answers with a redistricting case.

North Carolina: Scalia’s death could have quick impact on redistricting case | News & Observer

As the political battles heated up over who should replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers familiar with North Carolina’s redistricting case and other high-profile lawsuits took time on Sunday to weigh what impact the conservative jurist’s death might have on their cases. The North Carolina redistricting case, which invalidated the state’s 1st and 12th congressional districts, is one that could see a different outcome now, legal analysts speculate. Some analysts say Scalia’s death makes it much more likely that North Carolina’s March 15 primary elections will be delayed – at least in the congressional races. Until a new justice is appointed – and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised a delay for anyone President Barack Obama nominates – there could be a succession of 4-to-4 vote standoffs among the remaining justices. In such cases where there is a tie, the lower court ruling stands as if the high court had never heard the case.

North Carolina: Carved-up county braces for redistricting fight | Associated Press

Mary Hodgin lives in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. Her neighbors across the street do not. In fact, Hodgin didn’t live in this district until a few years ago — even though she’s been in the same Durham home for 25 years. The change came when Republican lawmakers drew the dividing line right down the mile-long stretch of Alston Avenue in front of her house. And, with the March 15 primary just weeks away, a court fight could change the boundaries again. “It’s very concerning as a voter who tries to stay abreast of the issues,” she said. “Worst-case scenario, it would put voters off from participating in any election.” Durham County had been part of a single congressional district for more than a decade until legislative mapmakers carved out chunks and added them to other territories before the 2012 elections. A color-coded map by state legislators makes the 1st District look like a yellow fist reaching in to scoop up downtown Durham and the surrounding neighborhoods. The county is now divided among four congressional districts.

North Carolina: Legislature to begin work on new congressional maps Monday | News & Observer

The state legislature will hold meetings starting Monday to draft new congressional maps in response to a court order, House Speaker Tim Moore announced Friday afternoon. Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release that they still hope the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a stay that allows them to avoid a lower court’s deadline next week to produce new maps. But the court doesn’t act, the full House and Senate will return to Raleigh on Thursday and Friday for a rare special session. “Due to the extremely tight deadline imposed on us by the federal trial court, we are being forced to hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” Rep. David Lewis and Sen. Bob Rucho said in a joint statement. “Hopefully, this is an unnecessary exercise since the overwhelming majority of times our redistricting plans have been reviewed, they have been validated as fair, legal and constitutional – and we remain confident that the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a stay.”n U.S. District Judges William Osteen of Greensboro and Max Cogburn of Asheville along with U.S. Circuit Judge Roger Gregory of Virginia ruled last week that the GOP-led legislature relied too heavily on race to draw the boundaries for the 12th and 1st Congressional Districts.

North Carolina: Redistricting fight heads to Supreme Court | The Charlotte Observer

North Carolina’s legal fight over its election map rapidly escalated Tuesday with the state asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case in hopes of protecting next month’s primary election. Lawyers for Gov. Pat McCrory and other state officials filed the emergency request no more than an hour after a three-judge federal panel refused to delay its order from last week that found two congressional districts, including one that runs through parts of Charlotte, unconstitutional. The judges have ordered the state to redraw the boundary for the 12th and 1st Districts by the end of next week. That’s about a month from the March 15 primary. State lawyers have argued that putting a new voting map in place at this late date will throw the election into disarray. That same argument, written partially in italics to convey the state’s sense of urgency, became the centerpiece of a 183-page motion to Chief Justice John Roberts late Tuesday. “This Court should stay enforcement of the judgment immediately,” the state argued.

North Carolina: Redistricting Case Could Delay March Primary | Roll Call

By moving up all its primaries from May to March 15, North Carolina thought it would be playing a more pivotal role in this year’s presidential election. But a recent federal court ruling invalidating two of the state’s congressional districts threatens to delay this year’s earlier-than-normal primary and upend elections in which early voting is already under way. A three-judge panel ruled on Feb. 5 that the GOP-legislature relied too heavily on race in 2011 to draw the 1st and 12th Districts. The court gave the state until Feb. 19 to draw new districts, and on Tuesday, the same court denied a request from the state to stay its decision. Lawyers for North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory took their objection to that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, filing an emergency 183-page motion to stay the lower court’s ruling. “Thousands of absentee ballots have been distributed to voters who are filling them out and returning them. Hundreds of those ballots have already been voted and returned,” the state argued.

North Carolina: Despite litigation, voter ID begins March 3 | Associated Press

The future of voter ID in North Carolina ultimately will be resolved by the courts. But pending lawsuits challenging its legality based on alleged racial discrimination haven’t changed the fact the photo identification mandate will begin statewide in three weeks. Starting with the early-voting period March 3, most every registered voter will have to show one of six types of qualifying IDs to cast a ballot in person, up through the March 15 primary election date. State Board of Elections director Kim Strach is confident the state’s first election under the mandate will avoid major troubles, citing training of election officials and a public relations campaign that includes radio and television ads and billboards. Voter guides are going out to more than 4 million households statewide.

North Carolina: DMV says it messed up by rejecting 86-year-old woman seeking voter ID | Charlotte News-Observer

The state DMV commissioner says his agency was wrong to turn away an 86-year-old Asheville woman who applied this week for a photo ID, which she’ll need to vote next month. “We messed that one up,” DMV Commissioner Kelly J. Thomas said in an interview. “We made a mistake. We’re going to try to correct it on Friday.” Reba Miller Bowser moved to North Carolina in 2012. Her son helped her fill out a voter registration application last weekend. He drove her to their local DMV office on Monday for the photo identity card she needs under North Carolina’s 2013 voter ID law. She carried a pile of papers, hoping to satisfy North Carolina’s lengthy documentation requirements for driver’s licenses and ID cards. “It became kind of an exciting thing to do, and we went to the DMV on Monday – and got totally deflated,” said her son, Ed Bowser. In two versions of her 1929 Pennsylvania birth certificate, she was identified as Reba Witmer Miller. She had taken her husband’s surname when they married in 1950, and the name change was reflected on her Social Security and Medicare cards and her expired New Hampshire driver’s license: Reba M. Bowser.

North Carolina: As Primaries Loom, Voting Rights Are Challenged in North Carolina | Fortune

Just when the right to vote, so cherished and so disputed, seem entrenched around the country, a new chapter in the long-running battle to secure it has opened. That chapter is unfolding in North Carolina, which holds its presidential primaries on March 15. In a matter of weeks, a federal judge in the state will decide whether to uphold or repeal new state requirements for photo identification from citizens who want to vote. The requirements are controversial, as some see them as an effort to curb African-American and Hispanic voting participation just as these groups are becoming a larger portion of the overall voter population. No matter the outcome, the case is likely to be regarded as a harbinger of whether enfranchisement applies to every eligible citizen, or whether it can be circumscribed as it has often been in the country’s past. In recent years, more than a dozen states, including Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin, have adopted new voter identification laws. And Florida and Ohio have curbed early voting.

North Carolina: Chief justice gives critics of election maps a week to respond | McClatchy DC

North Carolina’s civil war over its election map will stretch on for at least another week – raising more questions about whether the state’s March 15 primary takes place as scheduled. Tuesday night, Gov. Pat McCrory and other state leaders asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to set aside a lower court order that found portions of the state’s congressional district map unconstitutional. The three-judge panel also gave the state until a week from Friday to come up with a new map. Wednesday afternoon, Roberts responded. He gave the plaintiffs in the case, including retired Charlotte-Mecklenburg school teacher Christine Bowser, until next Tuesday to respond to the state’s request for a delay. State lawyers have argued that with the primary about a month away – and with absentee ballots already being returned – any changes will throw the upcoming election into turmoil. Yet without any guarantees on when and how Roberts or the full court will rule, McCrory may be compelled to call the legislature into special session next week to meet the lower court deadline for new maps. “The timing of this process practically means the state needs to prepare … a new map, just in case the (earlier) order is upheld,” said Kareem Clayton, a Vanderbilt University election law expert who has followed the North Carolina case.

North Carolina: She’s 86. She can’t get a photo ID. Look at the voter fraud we’ve prevented | The Charlotte Observer

Reba Bowser seems like the kind of person North Carolina Republicans might want on their side this November. She’s 86 years old. She’s a staunch Republican. She’s been a faithful voter since the Eisenhower administration, missing only the most recent election after moving from New Hampshire to western North Carolina to be close to her son’s family. “Both my parents, they voted in every election,” that son, Ed Bowser, says. “My grandparents did, too. They took this seriously.” So this month, with the North Carolina primary approaching, Reba wanted to make sure she could vote again. She needed to register, and she needed a valid photo ID, because beginning this year, North Carolina is requiring one to vote. Last week, Ed helped her gather the papers the state said she needed for that ID. They decided to make an event of the process – a celebration of democracy. They went out to lunch. They filled out her voter registration form. They took a happy photo. On Monday, they went to the Department of Motor Vehicles in west Asheville. There, they laid out all of Reba’s paperwork for a DMV official – her birth record from Pennsylvania, her Social Security card, the New Hampshire driver’s license she let expire because she no longer wanted to drive. But there was a problem. When Reba got married in 1950, she had her name legally changed. Like millions upon millions of women, she swapped out her middle name for her maiden name.

North Carolina: Lawmakers file appeal of congressional districts ruling | News & Observer

North Carolina leaders filed an emergency appeal Monday to overturn a federal court order that threw out the boundaries of two congressional districts and injected major uncertainty into the state’s March 15 primary. The motion was filed with the same three federal judges who found portions of the state voting map unconstitutional on Friday. State Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Matthews, who helped draw the district lines, said voting is already underway and should not be undermined by the courts. The state called for a response from the court on Monday. “We trust the federal trial court was not aware an election was already underway and surely did not intend to throw our state into chaos by nullifying ballots that have already been sent out and votes that have already been cast,” Rucho said in a statement. Later Monday, the judges gave the plaintiffs in the case, including two from Mecklenburg County, until noon Tuesday to respond.

North Carolina: Questions abound after judges invalidate 2 congressional districts | The Charlotte Observer

The day after a panel of federal judges invalidated two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts, state elections officials were working on a Saturday afternoon to encourage voters with absentee ballots to vote the full ballot anyway. Kim Strach, executive director of the N.C. Board of Elections, and Josh Lawson, general counsel for the board, said Saturday that they did not want voters who received the 8,611 absentee ballots sent out for the March 15 primary elections to lose an opportunity to vote. “The number one message we want to get out is we want voters to continue voting,” Strach said Saturday afternoon. Late on Friday, a three-judge panel ruled that North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts were racial gerrymanders and ordered them redrawn by Feb. 19. Though the ruling halts elections in those districts until new maps are approved, questions remained on Saturday about what that would mean for other congressional races on the primary ballots.

North Carolina: Federal court invalidates maps of two congressional districts | News & Observer

A federal court panel ruled late Friday that two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts were racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn within two weeks, sparking uncertainty about whether the March primary elections can proceed as planned. An order from a three-judge panel bars elections in North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts until new maps are approved. Challengers of North Carolina’s 2011 redistricting plan quickly praised the ruling, while legislators who helped design the maps said they were disappointed and promised a quick appeal. “This ruling by all three judges is a vindication of our challenge to the General Assembly of North Carolina writing racially biased ‘apartheid’ voting districts to disenfranchise the power of the African-vote,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter.

North Carolina: Does voter ID law suppress minority votes? A federal judge will decide. | Los Angeles Times

Coming of age in the Jim Crow South, Rosanell Eaton was one of the first African Americans to register to vote in her rural corner of North Carolina. After riding for two hours to the county courthouse on a mule-drawn wagon, the granddaughter of a slave was forced to take a literacy test—reciting the preamble of the U.S. Constitution—before she could vote. Seventy years later, the 94-year-old is at the center of a new struggle as the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to overturn North Carolina’s voter identification law, which requires most voters to show an approved form of photo ID at the polls. While supporters of the new law, which came into effect January, say it provides a bulwark against potential election fraud and is a minor administrative hassle that applies equally to all, critics contend that it disproportionately burdens African American and Latino voters, and that Republican legislators intentionally drafted it to obstruct minority voting. The six-day trial wrapped up Monday, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is not expected to hand down a verdict before voters go to the polls for the state’s March 15 presidential primary.

North Carolina: State NAACP to redouble efforts to get out vote in light of photo ID requirement | Winston-Salem Journal

A day after a federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID voting requirement wrapped up, the president of North Carolina chapter of the NAACP announced a massive effort to register voters across the state. The Rev. William Barber said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that it is imperative that he and others do everything they can to make sure every voter is able to cast a ballot in the March primaries. Early voting for the primary starts March 3. “On today, we understand that we must fight to overcome burdens as we fight to undue those burdens,” he said.
Monday marked the end of a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem over the requirement, which took effect this year, that voters show a photo ID at the polls.

North Carolina: Closing Arguments Given in Key Voter Rights Trial | The New York Times

In the final session of a trial that could yield a crucial decision about a policy that has been disputed for years, a federal judge heard closing arguments on Monday about North Carolina’s voter identification law. The arguments capped a six-day bench trial, before Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court, that included emotional testimony about voting rights and technical analyses of the law’s impact. The outcome will be seen as an important measure of what voting-related laws federal courts might allow states to pursue and enforce. The North Carolina chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. and other plaintiffs argued Monday, as they have for months, that the Republican-controlled General Assembly drafted the voter identification law in 2013 as a surreptitious way to curb the influence of black and Hispanic voters. The N.A.A.C.P. has argued that those voters are less likely to have one of the six accepted forms of identification required and often face more hardship in obtaining them. “They knew that all these provisions, taken individually and together, have racially discriminatory intent,” said Catherine Meza, a lawyer for the United States Justice Department, which joined the N.A.A.C.P. in the litigation.

North Carolina: Legislature ‘intentionally passed’ discriminatory voter ID law, lawyer says | The Guardian

The North Carolina legislature “intentionally passed a law that would discriminate against African Americans and Latinos”, an attorney told a federal judge on Monday in a case that could have broad implications for the 2016 election. The federal court in Winston Salem heard closing arguments in a trial over the state’s newly implemented voter identification law. The rule, which went into effect on 1 January, requires citizens to show state-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. The challenge to the law, led by the state chapters of the NAACP and League of Women Voters as well as the US Department of Justice, argued that the requirements were racially discriminatory to black and Latino citizens who are less likely to have photo ID or the means to acquire it. North Carolina is just one of 15 states where restrictive new voting laws will go into effect for the 2016 election and are forecast to disproportionately disenfranchise black and Latino Americans. The proceedings were the latest in the convoluted legal battle that has been unfolding in North Carolina since the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed HB 589 in July 2013. As well as mandating voter ID, the law significantly shortened the window for early voting, prevented citizens from voting outside their district, ended the preregistration of 17-year-olds, and stopped same-day registration, where voters register on the same day they cast a ballot.

North Carolina: Voter ID trial ends; decision is now up to federal judge | Winston-Salem Journal

In closing arguments Monday, North Carolina’s photo ID requirement was described by attorneys for the North Carolina NAACP as a racially discriminatory law that places unconstitutional burdens on blacks and Hispanics. Attorneys representing Gov. Pat McCrory and state elections officials called the change in the law a mere inconvenience, saying it would affect a small group of people. Penda Hair, an attorney for the N.C. NAACP, said evidence presented during the trial clearly shows that the photo ID requirement would make it harder for blacks and Hispanics to cast ballots in this year’s election. It’s undisputed, she said, that blacks disproportionately lack the kinds of photo IDs that they would need to show when they come to the polls.

North Carolina: Federal trial on voter ID expected to wrap up Monday | Winston-Salem Journal

Closing arguments in a closely watched federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voting will be Monday. Friday marked the first full day of evidence from attorneys defending state elections officials, state Republican legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory over the voter ID requirement that went into effect this year. The requirement is part of the state’s Voter Information Verification Act that legislators passed and McCrory signed into law in 2013. The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others filed a federal lawsuit over the provisions of the law, alleging that they are unconstitutional and violate the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. The plaintiffs allege two things: that the law — including the photo ID requirement — puts undue burdens on black and Hispanic voters, and that state Republican legislators had discriminatory intent in passing the legislation.

North Carolina: Closing arguments set in voter ID trial | News & Observer

For the past week, attorneys arguing for and against North Carolina’s new voter ID law at the federal trial in Winston-Salem have raised and knocked down the specter of voter fraud. The rule – that North Carolina voters show one of six photo identification cards before casting a ballot – was adopted in 2013. Republicans who had won control that year of both General Assembly chambers and the governor’s office touted the elections law overhaul as a way to preserve the integrity of one person, one vote.