N.C. governor calls voter ID suit an "overreach"

NEW YORK North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said he will "vigorously defend" his state's new voting reform law that is now under challenge by the U.S. Justice Department.

Responding to the lawsuit calling the state's photo ID law discriminatory and regressive, McCrory said, "The federal government's action is an overreach and without merit."

"This lawsuit will only result in costly legal bills and drawn out legal battles battles for both state and federal taxpayers," McCrory said.

When North Carolina passed its strict photo voter ID law in July, it became the 13th state to do so in the past three years and the first since the Supreme Court in June struck down sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that granted the federal government de facto veto authority over election law changes in states where segregation was legal until the 1960s.

The Justice Department's civil lawsuit filed Monday in Greensboro, N.C., federal court objects not only to a new voter photo ID requirement but also to the reduction nearly by half in the number of days of early voting, the elimination of same day registration during the early voting period, and the rejection of "otherwise legitimate" provisional ballots cast in precincts where registered voters are not assigned to vote.

"The Justice Department expects to show that the clear and intended effects of these changes would contract the electorate and result in unequal access to participation in the political process on account of race," said Attorney General Eric Holder in his remarks, in Washington, announcing the suit.

The lawsuit cites North Carolina's own election board statistics to argue that black voters in its would face disproportionate harm from the law, because they benefit disproportionately from early voting and same day registration.

For example, 70 percent of black voters who participated in the 2008 and 2012 elections did so in the 17-day early voting period, according to state election data. Overall, the percentage of black turnout exceeded white voter turnout both years. While comprising 22 percent of the electorate, black voters were 35 percent of the same-day registrants during early voting, according to state records, and twice as likely as white voters to use the method.

"Allowing limits on voting rights that disproportionately exclude minority voters would be inconsistent with our ideals as a nation," said Holder, who alluded to the partisan intent of the state's Republican leadership. Nine out of 10 black voters in North Carolina voted for President Obama twice, according to exit polls, when he carried the state in 2008 and when he fell short to Mitt Romney in 2012.

"The North Carolina General Assembly enacted this legislation despite having evidence before it that these changes would make it harder for many minority voters to participate in the electoral process," Holder said.

McCrory, a Republican former mayor of Charlotte who was elected last November, along with Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, said his state was targeted by a Democratic administration driven by partisanship.

"North Carolina is in the mainstream on this issue; it is the Justice Department that is on the fringes," McCrory said, in Raleigh.

The governor said that North Carolina is now one of 34 states that require voters to present some form of voter ID at the polls, one of 32 with some type of of early voting, and one of 37 states that do not allow same day registration.

"Protecting the integrity of every vote cast is among the most important duties I have as governor," McCrory said, calling the new provisions "common sense protections."

Holder, the nation's first black U.S. attorney general, said North Carolina's voting reforms had caused him more sorrow than anger and excoriated the logic of proponents who say that the photo voter ID and other provisions are needed to combat voter fraud.

"It pains me to see the voting rights of my fellow citizens negatively impacted by actions predicated on a rationale that is tenuous at best - and on concerns that we all know are not, in fact, real," Holder said.

When contacted by CBS News, the North Carolina State Board Of Elections has cited only one documented instance of in-person voter fraud that was referred to prosecutors since 2004.

Around the country, CBS News reported last year, there were fewer than 70 such cases in the first 10 states to pass photo ID laws since 2011 and proof of voter fraud was scarce or nonexistent in two such states, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, where trials over photo voter ID laws occurred last year.

Until the Supreme Court's ruling in Alabama's "Shelby County v. Holder" case three months ago, North Carolina was among 16 primarily Southern states with a history of racial discrimination that were required, under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, to obtain clearance from the Justice Department for all election law changes.

In the past three decades by going to court the Justice Department was able to block or amend voting changes in North Carolina 55 times, the lawsuit said. It cited Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in the new legal challenge.

North Carolina's law requires voters to present a state-issued driver's license or photo ID card issued by the state Department of Motor Vehicles, or a U.S. passport or U.S. military ID. College IDs, even from state schools, are no good.

Although the state would issue ID cards for free before the law is scheduled to take effect in 2016, the Justice Department complained about the cost to acquire underlying documentation or to travel to state DMV offices. It noted that minorities in North Carolina were more likely to be unemployed, have poverty level income, or lack a car or driver's license.

"Members of the North Carolina legislature knew of the disproportionate effect certain changes would have on the ability of African- American voters to participate equally in the franchise," the Justice Department lawsuit said, and "rejected amendments that would have mitigated the burden.

In August, two lawsuits filed in federal court, citing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and one lawsuit filed in state court, were brought by civil rights groups right after Governor McCrory signed the voting reform law in August. The lawsuits challenged the same four provisions targeted as discriminatory by the Justice Department -- the photo ID requirement, excluding college IDs and most others, the rollback of early voting days, the elimination of same registration during early voting, and the disqualification of provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct.

"North Carolina is engaging in a blatant attempt to make it harder for hundreds of thousands of eligible voters to cast a ballot," said Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project. "The Justice Department is right to take action against North Carolina's efforts to suppress the vote - particularly among people of color, poor people, and students."

Despite the Supreme Court decision curbing the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department, recently sued Texas over its photo voter ID law and legislative redistricting maps, calling them discriminatory against Latino and black citizens.