The Department of Justice announced Monday it is suing North Carolina regarding the state’s new voting law, which Gov. Pat McCrory signed in August.
According to The News & Observer, the lawsuit will take aim at the provisions that shorten early voting periods and require a government-issued photo ID. The DOJ alleges that this is an illegal form of discrimination against minorities.
McCrory said the lawsuit was an overreach and was without merit in a press conference held Monday afternoon.
“I firmly believe we’ve done the right thing,” McCrory said. “I believe this is a good law, and I strongly disagree with the action that the attorney general has taken.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, a Republican from Rockingham County, and House Speaker Thom Tillis, a Republican from Mecklenburg County, issued a joint statement on Monday.
“The Obama Justice Department’s baseless claims about North Carolina’s election reform law are nothing more than an obvious attempt to quash the will of the voters and hinder a hugely popular voter ID requirement,” the Republican lawmakers said in their statement. “The law was designed to improve consistency, clarity and uniformity at the polls and it brings North Carolina’s election system in line with a majority of other states. We are confident it protects the right of all voters, as required by the U.S. and North Carolina Constitutions.”
The Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP chapter, which has filed suits in state and federal court challenging the election law changes, also issued a statement on Monday.
“The southern strategy of the well-funded, nationally-coordinated ultra-right believes and has convinced many who purport a narrow and extreme political agenda that the only way they can hold onto their political power in Washington, and the South, is to drastically suppress voting rights for minorities,” Barber said. “We need every resource, including the U.S. government, to help us expose the national conspiracy behind this movement to suppress targeted constituencies in the new southern electorate.”
The Justice Department lawsuit comes four months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required a handful of mostly Southern states to obtain approval from the Justice Department before making changes to voting laws. Forty counties in North Carolina had been covered by the regulation.
North Carolina had the 11th highest voter turnout in the country last year.
