Voters, Civil Rights Groups Seek to Intervene in North Carolina Voting Case Brought by Justice Department

A group of North Carolinians, along with a coalition of nonpartisan voting and civil rights organizations, are seeking to intervene in a federal lawsuit that wrongly challenges the eligibility of more than 200,000 voters by claiming their registration records are incomplete.

Individual North Carolina voters Amy Grace Bryant, Rani Dasi, Audrey Meigs, Gabriela Adler-Espino, Larry Repanes, Ralim Allston, Kemeka Sidbury, and Mary Kay Heling, along with the NAACP North Carolina State Conference and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina — represented by attorneys from Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Forward Justice, and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law — filed a motion Tuesday to intervene in United States v. N.C. State Board of Elections.

The lawsuit claims the state is not complying with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), based on alleged missing information in voter registration databases, and seeks to compel a process that requires affected voters to resubmit personal information to remain on the rolls. The state’s failure to collect or preserve the missing information is not the fault of the affected voters, who fully complied with all registration requirements at the time—yet they now risk being removed from the rolls based on the relief being pursued in this case.

The intervenors seek to ensure eligible North Carolina voters at risk of being wrongfully removed from the rolls can participate in elections and are safeguarded from this serious threat to their fundamental right to vote.

Read the motion here.

“I believe in democracy and fighting for human rights. I cannot in good conscience claim to fight for other people’s rights and let my own get taken away,” said Gabriela Adler-Espino, a voter in Craven County who lives abroad with her husband who is in the military. “I did everything I had to do to ensure my vote was valid. What kind of person would I be—and what example would I be setting for my child—if I did not now fight for my own?”

“I felt angry and disheartened,” said Audrey Meigs, a voter from Durham County. “It’s infuriating that I once again have to worry about someone challenging my voter registration.”

“Instead of helping people vote, this administration is trying to block North Carolinians from having their say at the ballot box,” said Deborah Maxwell, president of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference. “We’re speaking out today to stand up for Black voters and our democracy—and to demand that everyone’s right to take part in our elections is protected.”

"Over the past few years, anti-voter forces sought to silence hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, but the League of Women Voters of North Carolina fought back — and voters and democracy prevailed,” said Jennifer McMillan Rubin, president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to unlawfully put hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters at risk of disenfranchisement. Once again, the League won’t back down. We will always fight to protect voters who deserve to have a say in North Carolina elections.”

Background

In late May, the Trump administration sued North Carolina’s State Board of Elections (NCSBE) for violating federal law by allegedly processing incomplete voter registration forms. For years, North Carolina’s voter registration form requested, but did not require, a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Though the form was fixed in 2023 to clarify that this identification information was required, and voters have to verify their identity when presenting to vote, the Justice Department now wants a federal judge to compel the NCSBE, to contact affected voters, obtain their missing info, and update the records.

The real danger of the lawsuit is that eligible voters who are either unable to be contacted or respond in time could lose their right to vote through no fault of their own. These hundreds of thousands of voters have repeatedly faced challenges to their right to cast a ballot despite following the rules at the time of registering. Their eligibility was questioned in an October 2023 administrative complaint; an ongoing August 2024 lawsuit; after the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court race; and now again in this case.