Justice Department opposes reopening settlement of NC election dispute
The US Department of Justice is opposing requests from the Democratic National Committee and clients of Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm to revisit the settlement of a federal lawsuit over North Carolina voter registration.
Justice Department lawyers filed a court document Friday in the case. It’s the first court filing since US Chief District Judge Richard Myers agreed to pause the case during the federal government shutdown.
The Justice Department filed suit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections in May. The suit challenged the integrity of state voter registration lists. Federal lawyers and the state elections board reached a deal to settle the lawsuit in early September. Myers accepted the deal on Sept. 8.
But the DNC and Elias’ clients — the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans — filed requests for Myers to reverse that decision.
Then the federal government shutdown prompted Justice Department lawyers to ask Myers to place the case on hold. A court filing indicated that the shutdown prevented government lawyers from working on the case. Myers agreed on Oct. 6 to delay all proceedings.
Now Justice Department lawyers working for Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon are responding to the requests from Democrats and their left-of-center allies.
“Neither NCARA nor the DNC can meet the heightened standards for reconsideration of the Consent Judgment and Order (‘Consent Order’) entered by the Court, which denied as moot their motions to intervene,” federal government lawyers wrote. “Instead, both attempt to relitigate many of the same arguments they made in their earlier unsuccessful motions to intervene and memoranda, with the addition of raising unfounded concerns about relief under the Consent Order. Their respective motions to intervene were fully briefed and were before the Court when it entered the Consent Order.”
“The objections NCARA and the DNC now wish to lodge are contradicted by the plain language of the Consent Order, are constrained by Federal law, and wholly fail to meet their elevated burden for reconsideration of that ruling,” the court filing continued. “Accordingly, Plaintiff United States of America respectfully requests that the Court deny the Motions by NCARA and the DNC.”
Democratic lawyers urged Myers in September to revisit the settlement.
“Although this Court has entered a consent judgment and order in this case (Consent Decree), the Democratic National Committee (DNC) should be permitted to intervene to protect the privacy interests of Democratic voters in North Carolina,” DNC lawyers wrote in a memorandum. “Through the Consent Decree, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has created a vehicle to obtain what it cannot otherwise procure: unrestricted access to the personal information of every registered voter in North Carolina, including driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.”
Myers has retained jurisdiction of the case, DNC lawyers added. He “recognized” that the elections board might seek a protective order “governing the use and release of confidential data.”
“The Court should afford that same right to the DNC, which has promptly and consistently sought to protect the rights of North Carolina voters in this and parallel litigation,” according to the memo.
Like the DNC, the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans has attempted to intervene in the case as a defendant.
“In its order entering the consent judgment between the U.S. Department of Justice and the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the Court found that ‘all interests are adequately represented’ by the existing parties and denied as moot the Alliance’s motion,” the alliance’s lawyers wrote. “That finding was in error. DOJ and the Board do not adequately represent the Alliance’s unique and paramount interests in ensuring its members’ votes are counted, that they may vote by regular ballot, and that their sensitive private information is kept confidential.”
“To the contrary, DOJ and the Board together devised a plan that threatens each of those interests,” alliance lawyers argued.
“Worse still, because DOJ and the Board have been aligned since the initiation of this lawsuit, denying the Alliance’s motion to intervene deprived the Court of hearing from the voters who are harmed by the consent judgment — or indeed from any party opposed to the consent judgment,” the court filing continued. “The absence of any adversarial process has serious consequences for voters: None of the existing parties, for instance, informed the Court that the Board’s program implementing the consent judgment would require election officials to throw out any ballots cast in state and local elections by covered voters if they fail — for whatever reason — to take the steps now required by the Board.”
“If afforded the opportunity to be heard, the Alliance would have explained that disenfranchising voters in this manner raises several concerns under the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act,” alliance lawyers wrote. “But the Court gave its seal of approval to a plan that would discount ballots cast by eligible voters without permitting briefing on the serious legal rights imperiled by the Board’s plan.”
The alliance urges Myers to withdraw his order approving the lawsuit settlement “and schedule adversarial briefing” on the deal.
“The United States and State Board Defendants, through counsel, have conferred in good faith and agree that this action should be settled without protracted and costly litigation,” Myers wrote in a 13-page order accepting the settlement between federal and state government agencies.
“State Board Defendants, their agents, employees, contractors, successors, and all other persons representing the interest of State Board Defendants are required to ensure that North Carolina’s voter registration forms and instructions and the State’s HAVA List used for elections for Federal office fully complies with Section 303(a)(5) of HAVA,” Myers wrote. “State Board Defendants are further enjoined from engaging in any act or practice that fails to comply with the requirements of Section 303(a) of HAVA.”
Myers’ order described a remedial plan the state elections board is pursuing to collect missing voter registration information. Voters with incomplete information will be required to cast a provisional ballot when they head to the polls.
“State Board Defendants will instruct the county boards of elections that for all provisional ballots issued pursuant to Paragraph 6(c), the vote cast for each Federal office on the provisional ballot will be counted, notwithstanding the presence of or validation of identification information supplied by the voter on the provisional ballot form , so long as the voter is otherwise eligible to vote under state law,” Myers wrote.
“The provisional voting process … shall not, by itself, result in any voter being removed from the official list of registered voters in state or Federal elections in North Carolina,” he added.
Myers called for reports from the state elections board in October, December, and February, along with an annual report starting in April 2026.
“This Order is final and binding between the United States and State Board Defendants and their successors in office regarding the claims raised in this action,” the judge wrote. The order remains in effect through June 2027.
The Justice Department and state elections board filed a joint motion for a court order ending the lawsuit.
“If approved, the proposed Order would resolve litigation brought by the United States pursuant to its authority to enforce the requirements of Section 303(a) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (‘HAVA’), with respect to the conduct of elections for Federal office in the State of North Carolina,” according to the document signed by lawyers from the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the North Carolina Department of Justice.
The document spelled out actions the elections board must take to comply with the deal.
“The State Board Defendants will contact voters registered using an application that did not comply with HAVA or whose record in the HAVA List lacks the required HAVA identification number, to obtain the required information needed to update the record,” according to the document. “Consistent with HAVA’s requirement that all voter registration information be timely entered into the HAVA List, the State Board Defendants will make any update to a record in the HAVA List on an expedited basis after receiving the update, as defined in the proposed Order.”
The state elections board will ensure county elections boards and staff “receive appropriate training and instructions” on HAVA compliance. The state board will also monitor HAVA compliance.
Voters with updated registration records “will vote by regular ballot” in upcoming elections. Those without updated records will cast provisional ballots. “The State Board Defendants will instruct the county boards of elections that for all provisional ballots issued pursuant to paragraph 6(c) only, the vote cast for each Federal office on the provisional ballot will be counted so long as the voter is otherwise eligible to vote under state law,” according to the document. “The provisional voting process outlined in Paragraph 6 shall not, by itself, result in any voter being removed from the official list of registered voters in state or Federal elections in North Carolina.”
“At the outset of this litigation, the records of approximately 100,000 voters lacked a driver’s license or the last four digits of the voter’s social security number as required by HAVA,” federal and state government lawyers wrote. “As of September 2, 2025, that number is 81,810 and dropping as the State Board continues its efforts to collect this information from affected registrants.”
The Justice Department and State Board of Elections urged Myers to deny motions from outside groups to intervene in the case.
The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party filed suit in August 2024 challenging the former Democrat-majority elections board’s handling of the voter registrations discussed in the Justice Department suit.
The GOP complaint challenged 225,000 voter registrations linked to a disputed voter registration form. Republican groups asked for the affected voters to be dropped from the voting rolls or required to cast a provisional ballot in the 2024 general election.
Courts refused to force the elections board to take that step.
Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin later raised the same issue in ballot challenges after the election. Trailing Democrat Allison Riggs by 734 votes, Griffin challenged more than 65,000 votes cast in the contest. More than 60,000 of those ballots involved voters whose registration records appeared to lack the required HAVA information.
The state Supreme Court ultimately decided that those votes would count in the final election tally. Griffin conceded the election after Myers declined to support a “cure” process that would have affected ballots Griffin challenged for other reasons.
“Justice Department opposes reopening settlement of NC election dispute” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
