North Carolina Photo ID Law Returns to Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A photo ID to vote law passed by lame-duck Republicans in North Carolina heads to court again this week. The 2018 law, which was passed despite a governor’s veto in the final days of Republicans holding veto-proof majorities in the state Legislature (created by unconstitutional gerrymandering), would require voters to provide photo ID to vote. In 2019, a NAACP case challenging the same law temporarily stopped the ID ban when a federal district court judge granted a preliminary injunction against the legislation. In the order, she stated that “electoral integrity is enhanced, not diminished when all eligible voters are allowed to exercise their right to vote free from interference and burden unnecessarily imposed by others.”
The lawsuit returning to court this week, Holmes v. Moore, was originally filed by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice on behalf of six plaintiffs who alleged that the 2018 voter ID law would disproportionately impact African American and Native voters and impose unnecessary barriers on the right to vote. The case will be heard over the next two weeks by a panel of three judges.