DNC sues North Carolina for alleged voter suppression in new elections bill

The Democratic National Committee and the North Carolina Democratic Party quickly sued North Carolina over an elections law passed Tuesday, arguing that it will cause voter suppression.

Arguing that several portions of the bill violate the Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act, Democrats brought their challenge in federal court and requested a jury trial.

Even as Democrats told The News & Observer about their intentions to sue, more plaintiffs including progressive organization Down Home North Carolina filed a separate lawsuit against the new law, focusing primarily on changes to same-day voter registration that Democrats also challenged.

Senate Bill 747, which Republicans enacted on Tuesday after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, also eliminates the three-day grace period for receiving absentee ballots, bans private money for election administration and empowers partisan poll observers to watch the voting process.

“North Carolina Republicans’ brazen attempts to undermine the will of the people and the leadership of Governor Cooper to strip voters of their hard-won voting rights is wholly unacceptable,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a news release. “Democrats are fighting back to ensure that every eligible North Carolinian has their voice heard and ballot counted. In the wake of the GOP’s continuous assault on democracy, we’re using every tool in our arsenal to put an end to Republicans’ voter suppression.”

Republicans argue that the bill will increase trust in elections without infringing on the right to vote.

“The intent of this bill is to help lend confidence to voters in elections by strengthening the integrity of the process,” said Sen. Warren Daniel, a Morganton Republican and one of the bill’s sponsors.

SB 747 was first proposed after top Republicans met with Cleta Mitchell, a former lawyer to former President Donald Trump who now pushes for stricter election laws across the country. A special grand jury in Georgia recommended charges against Mitchell for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Prosecutors did not end up indicting her.

The 43-page bill makes many changes pushed for by conservative election integrity groups, from opening up more avenues to contest absentee ballots to creating a pilot program for signature verification on mail-in ballots.

“North Carolina Republicans are launching an all out attack on democracy itself, and Democrats are not sitting idly by as their election suppression bill, SB747 becomes law,” NCDP Chair Anderson Clayton said in Democrats’ news release. “Instead of making it easier for folks to vote, Republicans are creating as many obstacles as possible for their own constituents. If Republicans thought they had a winning message that people wanted to vote for, they wouldn’t have spent their entire time in the majority targeting the ballot box, handpicking their voters, and rigging the system in their favor.”

Under one provision, anyone seeking to register as a voter during the in-person early voting period and cast their ballot on the same day will need to provide a photo ID and proof of residence. Election workers will then attempt to confirm this address is legitimate, but if their letter is returned as undeliverable, the voter’s ballot will be retrieved and thrown out, without the voter being able to contest the decision.

The DNC’s lawsuit also takes aim at the provision of the bill that shortens the deadline for receiving absentee ballots.

“This change cannot be justified as a way to ensure that election results are determined by election night (or very soon thereafter), because S.B. 747 simultaneously extends the window for challenging absentee ballots to five days after election day,” the lawsuit said. “...The legislature has thus perversely given less time to those who seek to exercise their fundamental right to vote and more time to those who seek to deny it.”

Democrats contend that portions of the law violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments, asking a judge to permanently block those sections.

The lawsuit also claims that the portion of the law that gives more power to partisan poll observers violates the federal Voting Rights Act, saying the introduction of empowered observers is “so intrusive that it is highly likely to intimidate voters.”

In its separate lawsuit, Down Home North Carolina is represented by the Elias Law Group, a powerful firm based in Washington and known for pursuing Democratic causes.

“S.B. 747’s undeliverable mail provision deeply impacts and disenfranchises rural North Carolina voters who are poor, working-class as well as the elderly or disabled,” Down Home Co-Director Dreama Caldwell said in a statement. “It is part of a larger, coordinated attack on our democracy and we cannot stand by without acting. We are proud to join this lawsuit with our co-plaintiffs and oppose legislation that was created to make it harder for North Carolinians to vote.”

Asked about the potential of incoming litigation, House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters he wasn’t concerned for the bill’s future.

“We expect litigation with so many things that we do, it’s just the nature of where we are right now,” the Republican speaker said. “But we feel like the legislation we passed is A.) the correct public policy and B.) that it’s on solid legal ground.”