Dems file lawsuit challenging just-enacted, Republican-crafted North Carolina voting law

Two top Democratic organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Republican-backed North Carolina election law moments after it went into effect.

The lawsuit, filed by Democratic National Committee and North Carolina Democratic Party, tackles multiple aspects of Senate Bill 747.

But the plaintiffs are specifically seeking preliminary relief on the bill’s provisions on same-day registration, which require additional photo ID and address verification requirements. Under those provisions, if voters opt to do same-day registration but do not have their submitted information verified on time, the ballot could be withdrawn under the new laws.

The lawsuit was filed immediately after the GOP-dominated legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill, according to Biden campaign officials who have been working closely with the DNC and North Carolina Democrats to craft the lawsuit in anticipation of the bill’s movement.

“Defending Americans’ fundamental right to cast their ballots against efforts to undermine their freedom to vote is an urgent priority for President Biden and Vice President Harris. SB 747 is not about protecting election security. It’s about making it harder for North Carolinians to vote and adding new burdens for voters to cast their ballot safely and, ultimately, have their vote counted,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

Senate Bill 747 overhauls the state’s election laws, adding new restrictions and deadlines, while also empowering partisan poll watchers, becoming the latest GOP-led effort to impose new voting restrictions in state legislatures across the country. In North Carolina, Republicans have deemed the law necessary to improve election security, while Cooper on Tuesday blasted it as a means for “manipulating elections to entrench their power” and North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton condemned it as an “all out attack on democracy itself.”

Tuesday’s legal challenge foreshadows the DNC and Biden campaign’s strategy going into 2024, drawing lessons from efforts to counter voting restrictions in 2020, campaign officials told POLITICO. During the last cycle, DNC officials found greater success in targeted challenges.

The goal with the design of Tuesday’s lawsuit, campaign officials said, is to successfully overturn some provisions before voters cast ballots in 2024. On the preliminary injunction on this case, the expectation is that a judge will issue a ruling in the next few months.

“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,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.