Legislative leaders seek dismissal of lawsuit challenging 30-day voter residency rule

State legislative leaders are asking a federal court to rule on their motion to intervene in a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s 30-day residency requirement for voters. If the court permits intervention, lawmakers want the case dismissed.

If a judge rejects their motion to dismiss the case, legislators ask the court to shift the suit from North Carolina’s Middle District to the Eastern District.

A group called the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans is challenging the residency requirement. The alliance is working with lawyers from high-profile Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm.

“Half a century ago, the North Carolina General Assembly required that every citizen must ‘have resided in the State of North Carolina and in the precinct in which the person offers to vote for 30 days next preceding an election’ to ‘be qualified to vote in the precinct in which the person resides,’” according to a memorandum lawmakers filed Monday.

“But Plaintiff North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans claims to have discovered that this voter qualification law and the constitutional provision that authorizes it, N.C. Const. art. II, §2, para. 1, violate the VRA Amendments of 1970 and — due to a Supreme Court case from 1972 — the U.S. Constitution.”

VRA refers to the federal Voting Rights Act.

“Despite its claims to the contrary, the Alliance has not unearthed violations of the VRA and the Constitution that have hidden in plain sight for fifty years,” lawmakers’ lawyers argued. “Even so, this Court cannot reach those merits issues because the Alliance, which is an organization that allegedly consists solely of members already residing in North Carolina, lacks standing.”

“To establish this Court’s jurisdiction, ‘the party seeking review’ must itself ‘be among the injured,’” legislators added. “The Alliance is not among the allegedly injured. It failed to plead that any of its members were unqualified to vote in an election at the time it filed the complaint. And the Alliance has not alleged any injury to its own rights.”

“Acting like a roving private attorney general, the Alliance waited to sue in an improper venue after its own claims became barred by laches and while any future member’s claim remained unripe,” lawmakers wrote. “This Court should dismiss the complaint or, alternatively, transfer the case to the Eastern District, where all the parties reside.”

The legal term “laches” refers to court’s ability to reject a lawsuit if a plaintiff waited too long to assert his claims.

State Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, filed paperwork in October to intervene in the case.

The Oct. 2 lawsuit seeks an injunction against the 30-day residency rule.

“The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) prohibits states from preventing otherwise eligible voters from voting for President and Vice President based on how long they have resided in the state before election day. And the U.S. Constitution prohibits such requirements in all elections,” according to the complaint filed in US District Court.

“To be sure, both the VRA and the U.S. Constitution allow states to impose short, pre-election registration requirements, and to limit registration and voting to bona fide residents,” the lawsuit added. “Specifically, the VRA authorizes registration deadlines up to 30 days before a presidential election. The U.S. Constitution allows short, pre-election registration deadlines where ‘necessary to permit preparation of accurate voter lists.’ And states are entitled to limit registration to voters who are bona fide residents.”

“But a registration requirement is different from a pre-election durational residency requirement, which the VRA absolutely prohibits in presidential elections, and which impinges on fundamental rights to vote and travel, with no adequate justification, in all elections,” the complaint argued. “Both the VRA and the U.S. Constitution protect voters from being denied the fundamental right to vote simply because they moved to another state shortly before election day if they otherwise comply with the state’s registration deadlines and other requirements.”

“North Carolina law violates these federal protections by imposing a pre-election durational residency requirement that is longer than the registration deadline, and that therefore prevents voters who could otherwise lawfully register and cast ballots from doing so just because they moved into the state too recently,” according to the complaint. “This requirement applies an arbitrary residency requirement to deny voters their right to participate in elections in their new domicile.”

The challenged state law — NC Gen Stat. § 163-55(a) — sets a residence period for state elections. It says “Every person born in the United States, and every person who has been naturalized, and who shall have resided in the State of North Carolina and in the precinct in which the person offers to vote for 30 days next preceding an election, shall, if otherwise qualified, … be qualified to vote in the precinct in which the person resides.”

“North Carolina law also requires voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they have resided in the state for at least 30 days before the date of the election,” the lawsuit argued. “And North Carolina law includes no exception for presidential and vice-presidential elections.”

“These laws flatly violate both the VRA and the U.S. Constitution,” according to the complaint.

“To ensure that North Carolina voters, including the members and constituents of the Alliance, will not be denied their right to vote in violation of the VRA and the U.S. Constitution, the Alliance seeks an order from this Court declaring the Durational Residency Requirement unlawful and enjoining its enforcement because it: (1) violates Section 202 of the VRA, and (2) violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution,” the lawsuit added.

The retirees alliance is a 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization” affiliated with the Alliance for Retired Americans. “The mission of the Alliance and its nationwide affiliate is to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for retirees, with particular emphasis on safeguarding their right to vote,” according to the complaint. The group says it has about 52,000 members in North Carolina.

The group claims the residency requirement “harms new members of the Alliance who move to North Carolina within the month leading up to any federal election.” The 30-day requirement also “directly threatens the Alliance’s mission, which relies on the electoral engagement of its members.”

“By systematically preventing many of the Alliance’s members from voting in the first year of their move, the Durational Residency Requirement undermines the Alliance’s get-out-the-vote work in North Carolina and its advocacy work on other public policy issues that are critical to its membership, including the pricing of prescription drugs and protecting benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, making the Alliance less effective in furthering its mission than it otherwise would be, and requiring it to spend additional resources that it would otherwise spend in other ways,” the complaint argued

Elias is not named as one of the attorneys representing the alliance, but four of the five listed attorneys work for his Washington, DC-based Elias Law Group. Elias has challenged other state election laws, including election maps.

The case is titled North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans v. Hirsch.

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