A retirees group working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm is raising concerns about a plan that could resolve a month-old legal dispute between the US Justice Department and North Carolina election officials.
A court filing this week suggested that the legal action threatens voting rights in the state.
The State Board of Elections voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with the disputed plan. It involves contacting voters to secure information missing from their voter registration records.
The Justice Department filed suit against election officials in May to prompt the collection of the missing information. The suit accused election officials of violating the federal Help America Vote Act by failing to maintain accurate voter lists.
The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans is one of multiple groups seeking to intervene in the case. The alliance works with attorneys from the Elias Law Group. Both the Justice Department and state elections board have urged a federal judge to deny all requests for outside intervention in the case.
“In relevant part, the plan would require the Board to mail information requests to tens of thousands of registered North Carolina voters whose files purportedly lack information the federal government contends is required by HAVA,” the alliance’s lawyers wrote Wednesday. “The Board stated that it would require as many as 98,000 of those registered voters to cast provisional ballots if they do not provide the requested information.”
An upcoming brief from the alliance will “explain 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 court filing continued.
Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, “publicly confirmed he had been in ‘discussions’ with the federal government regarding a resolution to this action,” the alliance’s lawyers wrote. Hayes indicated Tuesday that the federal government had “tentatively signed off on” the plan.
“[T]he tentative plan would require the Board to mail two sets of notices to approximately 98,000 voters ‘who registered after HAVA became effective’ and whose records ‘apparently’ do not include ‘HAVA info and have not otherwise complied with HAVA,’” the court filing added. “Mr. Hayes did not explain the method by which the Board had or would determine whether a voter lacked HAVA information or failed to comply with HAVA for purposes of these mailings, or whether the Board’s method would accurately capture such voters.”
“For registered voters who do not respond to the Board’s mailings and seek to vote in person, the Board would ‘creat[e] a flag to appear on these voters’ records’ to ‘alert[] poll workers that they must vote provisional ballot and provide missing information for [the] ballot to count,’” the court filing added.
“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,’” alliance lawyers wrote.
The Democratic National Committee, state NAACP, League of Women Voters of North Carolina, and Elias’ clients all have filed motions seeking to join the case as defendants.
“Proposed Intervenors’ stated interests will not be impaired absent intervention in this lawsuit,” wrote state government lawyers in a court filing Monday. The lawyers, all special deputy attorneys general with the North Carolina Department of Justice, represent the elections board.
The filing rejects all motions to intervene in the case.
“As a threshold matter, intervention as of right in this action is inconsistent with this Court’s prior ruling in the related cases that HAVA provides no private right of action to a similar organization and its member-voters,” state government lawyers wrote.
Proposed intervenors could focus instead on other existing lawsuits addressing the same issue, including one filed by the Republican National Committee, “not this enforcement action by the United States against the State of North Carolina,” the elections board’s court filing added.
The elections board also questioned the substance of the proposed intervenors’ requests.
“Each of the Proposed Intervenors appears to misunderstand the scope of the relief requested in the complaint,” the board’s lawyers wrote.
“[A] primary interest put forward by each of the Proposed Intervenors to justify intervention is their belief that this lawsuit presents the risk of removal of registered voters from the registration list,” the court filing continued. “But Plaintiff’s complaint contains no request to remove any voter from the registration list. Again, the complaint calls for State Defendants to develop a plan to contact and collect the allegedly missing information from voters in order to update the registration database. It contains no demand that any registered voter be removed from North Carolina’s registration list as part of that process.”
“Thus, because there is no risk of removal from the instant action, Proposed Intervenors’ interest in preventing removals cannot be impaired by this action,” state government lawyers wrote.
“State Defendants respectfully suggest that rather than adding more parties to this action, the better course has already been achieved by designating this case as a related case to the RNC action,” the elections board’s lawyers wrote. “Again, all of the related cases are assigned to the same district judge, all parties are able to adequately present their interests to that same district judge, and any rulings will be consistent between the related cases, such that permissive intervention should be denied.”
The US Justice Department filed paperwork Monday opposing intervention from the retirees alliance.
“Proposed Intervenor has failed to establish sufficient grounds for intervention, as it lacks standing under controlling authority, it presents a generalized interest in preventing the United States from obtaining relief from Defendants’ violations of Section 303(a)(5) of HAVA, and its speculative basis for intervention fails to articulate any concrete grievance or interest that has been or may be violated,” federal government lawyers wrote. “Proposed Intervenor has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that it meets the standards for intervention as of right, as set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a), or for permissive intervention, as set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b).”
Federal lawyers followed up Tuesday with a new document opposing the other motions to intervene in the case.
“Contrary to the Complaint and federal law, both new briefs raise similar alarmist assertions that this action will significantly impair the right to vote,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. “Both likewise engage in speculation that the State Defendants’ ‘desire to cure supposed HAVA violations may motivate [them] to voluntarily consent’ to some form of disenfranchising procedure and conjecture about ‘[t]he contours of any court order or settlement.’”
US Chief District Judge Richard Myers oversee the suit. Myers addressed similar issues when dealing with the six-month legal battle between Allison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin over a seat on North Carolina’s Supreme Court. Myers is also handling the RNC case.
“The DNC, on behalf of itself and its members in North Carolina, … moves to intervene in this matter to protect its unique interest in preventing inconsistent adjudications in this case and other cases in which it has already intervened to defend North Carolina voters against the same baseless allegations that the federal government makes here,” the Democratic group’s lawyers wrote on June 17.
The NAACP’s state conference and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina filed a separate document the same day along with eight people labeled “impacted voters.”
“Hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters are once again facing the threat of losing their right to vote because of voter registration database issues that stem from the state’s efforts to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA),” the court filing explained. “Over the last 18 months, these voters have experienced a seemingly endless loop of scrutiny, despite doing everything they can to confirm that they were (or currently are) properly registered.”
“Each action targeted eligible voters — including the Impacted Voters — who followed all the rules for registration, but for whom the registration database does not have a record of a driver’s license or socialsecurity number. Yet the voices of these voters are critically absent from this case,” lawyers for the NAACP and LWVNC wrote.
The Justice Department “has wholly failed to concretely identify any specific voter who was registered contrary to HAVA, and instead simply assumes as much based on imperfect statewide records,” according to a June 2 court filing from the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans. The alliance is working with the Elias Law Group.
“Despite its paltry allegations, the federal government asks this Court to force North Carolina to engage in a herculean data-collection process, contacting every single voter in the state whose registration file appears to be missing information and then collecting that information,” the alliance argued. “The inevitable consequence of the federal government’s lawsuit is clear: voters who cannot be contacted stand to be kicked off the rolls, even if they complied with HAVA when they registered or never had to comply with HAVA at all. The federal government’s paper-thin allegations do not warrant the heavy-handed relief it seeks, which will invariably lead to thousands of eligible North Carolinians losing their registration status.”
The Justice Department filed suit against the state and its elections board on May 27.
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a news release. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”
“Defendants have failed to maintain accurate lists in North Carolina’s computerized statewide voter registration in violation of Section 303(a)(5) of HAVA and the sacred trust that the people of the State of North Carolina have put in them to ensure the fairness and integrity of elections for Federal office in the state, necessitating this litigation,” according to the lawsuit.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party filed suit in August 2024 challenging the former Democrat-majority elections board’s handling of the voter registrations discussed in the Justice Department suit.
The GOP complaint challenged 225,000 voter registrations linked to the disputed form. Republican groups asked for the affected voters to be dropped from the voting rolls or required to cast a provisional ballot in the 2024 general election.
Courts refused to force the elections board to take that step.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Griffin later raised the same issue in ballot challenges after the election. Trailing the Democrat Riggs by 734 votes, Griffin challenged more than 65,000 votes cast in the contest. More than 60,000 of those ballots involved voters whose registration records appeared to lack the required HAVA information.
The state Supreme Court ultimately decided that those votes would count in the final election tally. Griffin conceded the election after a federal judge declined to support a “cure” process that would have affected ballots Griffin challenged for other reasons.
The post Elias clients argue Justice Department lawsuit against NC ‘threatens’ voting rights first appeared on Carolina Journal.