North Carolina court strikes down voter ID law as racial discrimination

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday struck down a state voter identification law, ruling that Republican lawmakers acted unconstitutionally to minimize Democratic voters’ power with a law that intentionally discriminated against Black voters.

“We hold that the three-judge panel’s findings of fact are supported by competent evidence showing that the statute was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose,” Associated Justice Anita Earls wrote for the majority in the 89-page ruling. “The provisions enacted … were formulated with an impermissible intent to discriminate against African American voters in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.”

Senate Bill 824 required every voter to present one of a few specific forms of photo identification, a measure the justices ruled was passed in part to discriminate against Black voters. Despite most voters having at least one of the forms of identification, the risk of having voters suppressed was very real, they said.

The Supreme Court also upheld a lower court’s earlier ruling that congressional districts drawn by state legislators “fell short of constitutional standards.” The decision also overturned a lower court’s decision to approve state senate districts that also were drawn by state lawmakers.

In a 130-page decision in Harper v. Hall, Justice Robin Hudson wrote that when a redistricting plan “systematically makes it harder for individuals of one political party to elect a governing majority than individuals of another party of equal size based upon that partisanship, it deprives a voter of his or her fundamental right to equal voting power.”

She went on to write that the map of state senate districts “creates stark partisan asymmetry in violation of the fundamental right to vote on equal terms.”

Until legislators can draw maps fairly, Hudson wrote, “it remains the solemn constitutional duty of this Court and our state judiciary to stand in the breach.”

North Carolina voters backed a constitutional amendment requiring a voter ID law in 2018 before the General Assembly approved the legislation that December. But the law – which Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed before the legislature overrode his veto – immediately became the target of lawsuits in state and federal courts.

The case of Holmes v. Moore was decided 4-3 along party lines, with the court’s Democrats in the majority. The ruling is one of the court’s final decisions before it becomes GOP-controlled. Following this year’s judicial elections, the North Carolina Supreme Court will flip in January from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican one. Given the change, it’s possible that the GOP-controlled state legislature will attempt to pass a new version of the voter ID law – and a new state Senate map – that could be viewed more favorably by a conservative-leaning state court system than the law in question Friday.

Michael Whatley, chairman of the state Republican Party, spoke optimistically about the North Carolina court’s coming conservative majority.

He told the Washington Post on Friday the judges who sit on the court engage in “legal gymnastics at the highest level and it is results-oriented jurisprudence. The voters of North Carolina have roundly rejected that.”

“Thankfully, we are getting to the end of the reign of these judicial activists on the North Carolina Supreme Court, who have pushed their agenda from the bench rather than following the law and the constitution of North Carolina,” he said.

Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) celebrated Friday’s ruling as protecting the voting rights of some of North Carolina’s most disenfranchised citizens, which the lawmaker said are consistently under threat.

“Today’s decision by the North Carolina Supreme Court demonstrates why state legislatures need checks and balances,” she told the Post.

“This unconstitutional law was never about election security; it was always about voter suppression. Today’s decision will allow more North Carolina citizens to participate in our democratic elections. Period.”

Bobbie Richardson, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said the ruling will allow for more of the state’s residents to get involved in the political process.

“North Carolina Democrats believe we should be making it easier to vote, not harder,” she told the Post. “Measures like voter ID create unnecessary barriers to voting and disproportionately impact vulnerable populations across the state who have a right to vote.”

In the voter ID ruling, Earls wrote about the importance of protecting rights of voters who felt threatened by the voter ID legislation by referring to a nearly 60-year-old case decided during the civil rights movement.

“The right to vote is a fundamental right, preservative of all other rights. If the right to vote is undermined, it renders illusory all ‘other rights, even the most basic,’” she wrote.

A trial court previously noted that North Carolina is historically racially polarized, given that most White voters back the GOP while the majority of Black voters support the Democratic Party. The trial court and court of appeals determined that this polarization “offers a political payoff” for lawmakers to limit the minority vote. The legislation aimed to target Black voters because of the likelihood of them opposing Republican candidates, the judges found.

“Although laws that limit African American political participation have frequently been race neutral on their face, they have ‘nevertheless had profoundly discriminatory effects,’” Earls wrote. “Thus, equal access to the ballot box remains a critical issue in North Carolina.”

The judges ruled that the legacy of voter suppression in North Carolina continues to impact election outcomes even after efforts to expand voting rights have advanced. Voter fraud is so rare in the state that a less-restrictive law would have been sufficient to address concerns about the lack of confidence in elections, they said.

The court also argued that GOP leaders intentionally redrew North Carolina’s political districts in a way that significantly minimized the impact of Democratic votes in choosing congressional and state lawmakers.

North Carolina’s voter ID law, though requiring a photo ID, is seen even by its opponents as more permissive and broad than similar laws in other states – including laws, such as Indiana’s, that have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers Democracy Fund, a group that opposed the bill, argued that no other voter ID law provided free voter IDs without underlying documents and a reasonable impediment exception has ever been invalidated.

Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, praised the court’s gerrymandering ruling Friday as an example of how democracy should function.

“This is a victory for North Carolina voters, who will now have both fair congressional and state legislative maps,” said Holder, who served as U.S. Attorney General during the Obama administration. “This decision not only cements important legal precedent in state court – something that any future court will have to consider in redistricting cases going forward – it also underscores the fact that our system of checks and balances must remain intact.”

In his statement, Holder said the decision announced Friday could influence the U.S. Supreme Court as it weighs a case that could give state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for federal elections, subject only to intervention by Congress, even if legislators’ actions violate voter protections laid out in state constitutions and result in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats. The case had been advanced by North Carolina Republican legislators and the Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this month.