Glick made the remark during his opening statement as lawyers representing the NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice returned to federal court in a bid to overturn North Carolina’s 2013 voter ID law.
This morning marked the second time lawyers representing the Justice Department and civil rights groups have appeared before federal judge Thomas D. Schroeder to argue against changes to North Carolina’s elections laws.
A Single Provision of a Large and Complex Law
The photo ID requirement is perhaps the best-known provision of the Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA), a sweeping overhaul of North Carolina election law signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory in August 2013. VIVA’s other provisions shortened the state’s early voting calendar, ended the counting of out-of-precinct ballots and scrapped a program to pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds, among other changes.
Those other provisions were contested in a three-week trial last July. In his opening remarks this morning, Judge Schroeder said the July trial had produced “some 20,000 pages of materials” for him to consider.
The judge has not yet issued a ruling on the July trial.
Last Minute Ruling Leads to Separate Trial
In its original form, VIVA required North Carolina voters to present one of eight state-issued photo IDs at the polls. Republican lawmakers said the photo ID requirement was necessary to protect against voter fraud. The NAACP, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and other civil rights groups filed a trio of lawsuits, saying the new law unfairly burdened poor, minority, elderly and student voters and violated both the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
On June 18, 2015, three weeks before the lawsuits were set to begin, the North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 836. Signed by Gov. McCrory on June 22, H.B. 836 allowed voters with voters without a valid photo ID to cast a provisional ballot if they sign a “reasonable impediment declaration.”
Acceptable impediments include family responsibilities, lost or stolen IDs, work-schedule conflicts and transportation problems.
After the abrupt change to the law, Plaintiffs’ attorneys asked Judge Schroeder to drop any consideration of the photo ID provision from the July trial. Judge Schroeder agreed.
When the two sides failed to negotiate a settlement on the ID provision, the judge scheduled a new trial.
“A solution in search of a problem” or a “Very, very small group of people”
In his opening argument, Glick said the Reasonable Impediment added a vague and confusing new process to voting. He said VIVA’s photo ID requirement is “one of the strictest photo ID laws in the country,” and called it “a solution in search of a problem.”
In his opening argument Defense attorney Thomas Farr questioned the number of voters who needed a photo ID.
“We are talking about a very, very small group of people,” he said. He said the process of getting a photo ID was no more complicated than the process of applying for social services.
Farr also reminded the court that although VIVA was signed into law in 2013, it gave North Carolina voters two full years to get an ID before the provision went into effect. He claimed a recent Civitas poll showed a majority of North Carolina voters supported the ID requirement.
The trial is expected to conclude this week.
