Attorney Geneal Josh Stein announced Thursday that he'll fight a federal judge's decision to block North Carolina's voter ID law, but he won't press to require photo identification at the polls in the coming primaries.
With the primaries in March and absentee voting starting in 11 days, Stein said he wants to avoid confusion.
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"We anticipate that photo identification will not be required to vote in the primary per the district court’s decision," Stein said in a news release.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs blocked the state law with a court order earlier this week, saying the law was likely passed with at least some racially discriminatory intent.
The law's fate long-term will be decided in a trial and potentially through a series of appeals in the federal courts system. There are also two separate lawsuits at the state level that target voter ID in North Carolina, and those cases will play out as well.
For now, Biggs' injunction will likely to stand through the primaries, though photo ID may be required at the polls during the November general elections.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed the law in late 2018, over Gov. Roy Cooper's veto. But it falls to Stein, like Cooper, a Democrat, to defend it as the state's top attorney. Republican legislative leaders asked Biggs to let them join the case to defend the law themselves, but she denied them.
Steins' office opposed the injunction and has argued in court filings that the law "does not deny, abridge, or significantly burden any voter’s right to vote.” Though the law generally requires photo ID to vote, it also makes IDs available for free, without requiring birth certificates or other documentation, and it allows people to vote without ID if they fill out a reasonable impediment form and swear, in writing, that they are who they say they are.
Republican leadership had called on Stein not only to appeal the judge's decision but to seek an immediate stay so the state's voter ID rules would be in place for the primary.
"The Attorney General is supposed to be our lawyer, but he’s clearly not taking the action that we’ve requested by refusing to seek a stay," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger spokesman Pat Ryan said in an email Thursday.
Several NAACP branches filed this lawsuit, and state president Rev. T. Anthony Spearman said in a Friday statement that the decision shouldn't be appealed.
"Put simply: Racism in our voting system cannot be accepted and should not be defended," Spearman said. "In this climate, at this time in our history, we cannot afford equivocation on the question of justice and any stench of racism in our laws."
The attorney general's full statement from Thursday is below:
"In the federal litigation over North Carolina’s photo identification voting requirement, the North Carolina Department of Justice will appeal the district court's recent decision to enjoin the law pending a trial. However, to avoid any further voter confusion in the primary election in which absentee voting begins in just 11 days and to ensure that the primary election proceeds on schedule and is administered in an orderly manner, the Department will not seek a stay of this injunction before the primary. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will review the district court’s decision, but we anticipate that photo identification will not be required to vote in the primary per the district court’s decision."