RALEIGH – The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and six local chapters asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to reverse a judgment upholding the state’s 2018 voter-identification law.
The groups filed a 76-page opening brief Sept. 30 in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing challenges a March 31 final judgment from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, which ruled for defendants after a 2024 trial.
The appeal centers on whether Senate Bill 824 was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose. The law requires voters to present an accepted photo ID or use one of the law’s exceptions, including a reasonable-impediment process.
In the brief, the plaintiffs argue that the trial court gave too much weight to a presumption that lawmakers acted in good faith. They also contend that the judge considered evidence in isolation instead of weighing the full sequence of events, legislative history and racial impact under the legal framework set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
The plaintiffs also say the district court improperly treated an earlier 4th Circuit ruling on a preliminary injunction as controlling even though the later trial included additional evidence. They ask the appeals court to reverse the judgment or, at minimum, vacate it and return the case for reconsideration.
The district court reached the opposite conclusion in its March order. It found that the challengers had not shown sufficient discriminatory intent and said the law’s limited bipartisan support and several voting safeguards weighed against their claims.
Republican legislative leaders have defended the law. Their pretrial arguments emphasized free voter IDs, a broader list of acceptable identification and the reasonable-impediment process. The State Board of Elections also supported the law during the trial proceedings.
The federal lawsuit was filed in 2018. The photo-ID requirement has been used in North Carolina elections since 2023.
The new filing does not suspend the voter-ID law or change current election procedures. The 4th Circuit has not ruled on the appeal.
Sources
- Plaintiffs-appellants’ opening brief, filed Sept. 30, 2026
- U.S. District Court order and findings, filed March 26, 2026
- Carolina Journal: Oct. 1 report on the appeal brief
Photo Credit: Acroterion via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis F. Powell Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Richmond, photographed April 29, 2015. Cropped and resized, then combined with the unchanged NCPN footer and logo. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richmond_Federal_Appeals_Court_and_skyline_VA2.jpg. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.