New Filing Details NC Election Board and Trump DOJ Co-Ordinating on Plan That Could Disenfranchise Voters
A new deal to settle a lawsuit brought by the Trump administration against the North Carolina State Board of Elections suggests neither side is looking out for voters, pro-voting groups argued Wednesday in a court filing.
The filing details co-ordination between the GOP-controlled board and the U.S. Department of Justice on resolving the lawsuit, which was filed last month.
The agreement would force nearly 100,000 North Carolina voters to take an additional step to verify their identity or risk being disenfranchised.
The DOJ alleged that thousands of North Carolina’s voter records are incomplete, in violation of federal voting law, because the state’s voter registration form did not indicate proof of identification information was required.
An estimated 200,000 registered voters have missing information, according to the board.
The board approved a plan Tuesday that calls for the state to mail two notices to each affected voter requesting the missing information. Around half of the voters would still be able to cast a regular ballot because they have since provided an alternative form of ID, but the other half would need to respond to the mailings or else be forced to cast a provisional ballot.
The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans (NCARA) – one of several groups seeking to intervene as defendants in the case – filed a notice Wednesday arguing the agreement suggests the board isn’t defending the interests of voters.
The NCARA said it planned to make an additional filing explaining “how the Board’s proposed plan confirms that the Alliance’s members’ voting rights are threatened by this litigation and that those interests are not adequately represented by the existing parties.”
The notice also suggests, though it doesn’t outright say, that the board is coordinating improperly with the Trump administration.
The filing notes that at the Tuesday meeting, “the Board’s Executive Director, Sam Hayes, publicly confirmed he had been in ‘discussions’ with the federal Government regarding a resolution to this action. Mr. Hayes presented to the Board an ‘outline for a plan’ that the federal Government ‘tentatively signed off on.’”
It continues:
“Mr. Hayes further stated that he ‘believe[d]’ the federal Government would ‘sign off on’ the plan, and if not, Mr. Hayes ‘plan[ned] to work with the DOJ to bring’ the Board into ‘full compliance with federal law.’”
Last month, the GOP installed a new right-wing majority on the state’s board of elections after a recent law stripped the governor, a Democrat, of the right to appoint board members and handed it to the state auditor, a Republican. The board immediately replaced its nonpartisan election administrator with Hayes, a former top lawyer for the state’s Republican Speaker of the House.
“Given recent changes in the composition and leadership of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, there is no assurance that Defendants will fully protect them,” the Alliance argued in a previous filing. “Indeed, there is substantial reason to believe the State Board may agree with the federal government in this case.”
Judge Richard E. Myers II, a Trump appointee who ordered the state last month to certify Democratic state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ election win, will decide whether to allow the groups to intervene.
For North Carolina, the stakes in the case are high. The board’s plan is just the latest in an ongoing effort to add stumbling blocks for voters. Together, those efforts have resulted in nearly 1.5 million eligible voters in North Carolina who aren’t participating in elections, according to a newly released report from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice that details the impact of the GOP’s endless quest to impose restrictions in response to false allegations of voter fraud.
“The real threat to our democracy is just the opposite: too many people don’t register to vote and don’t show up at the polls,” the report concluded, finding that people of color and young voters have been the most affected.
The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans is represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.
Yunior Rivas contributed to this report.