Federal judge upholds North Carolina’s voter ID law, rejects NAACP challenge
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge finds disparate impact but upholds North Carolina photo voter ID law.
- Judge cites Supreme Court precedent and 2018 amendment to uphold law.
- Voter ID law has been in effect since 2023 NC Supreme Court ruling.
Nearly two years after North Carolina’s voter ID law went to trial over allegations of racism and voter suppression, a federal judge on Thursday upheld the requirement, ruling against the NAACP, which had brought the lawsuit.
In a 134-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs, an appointee of President Barack Obama, wrote that she agreed the law could have a disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities, but that recent precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court required her to uphold it.
“There will be photo voter ID in the state of North Carolina,” Biggs wrote, noting that voters approved the requirement for voters to show photo identification in a constitutional amendment in 2018. “In our democratic system of government, we must accept the will of the majority of voters on this issue unless or until the people of North Carolina decide otherwise.”
The NAACP, which first filed the lawsuit in 2018, had argued that the voter ID law discriminates against Black and Latino voters, who are less likely to have a photo ID.
In a statement on Thursday, Senate leader Phil Berger celebrated the ruling.
“Finally. After seven years, we can put to rest any doubt that our state’s Voter I.D. law is constitutional,” he said. “This is a monumental win for the citizens of North Carolina and election integrity efforts.”
Representatives for the NAACP did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
When the case went to trial in 2024, a lawyer for the NAACP said that the case was about “impermissible, intentional racist discrimination,”
Republican lawmakers, however, argued that the law had broad accommodations to minimize disenfranchisement, noting that voters without IDs are allowed to fill out an exception form and cast a provisional ballot.
Biggs wrote that even with those measures, provisional ballots can still be denied if election officials determine that the information on the form is false.
“Voting provisionally does not guarantee the exercise of an individual’s right to vote as it does not guarantee that such vote will be counted,” she wrote. “... The fact of the matter is that on Election Day thousands of voters — and a disparate number of them being racial minorities — will not possess the required ID to vote despite being validly registered North Carolina voters, and for many their vote will not count when the election is certified.”
The state’s voter ID law took effect in 2023, when a newly-elected Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed a past ruling that had struck it down.
In the November 2024 election, roughly 2,000 ballots were thrown out for ID reasons.
In total, 5.7 million ballots were cast.
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 4:20 PM.
