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 guarantee of equal protection of the laws means that a law enacted with the intent to discriminate on the basis of race is unconstitutional even if no voter ultimately is disenfranchised because ‘racial classifications of any sort pose the risk of lasting harm to our society,’” Earls wrote.
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 was decided 4-to-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.
Earls wrote about the importance of protecting voters rights 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 currently and 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 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.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina 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, 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.”
Amy Gardner contributed to this report.
