Lawmakers have the power to defend election laws against lawless election officials and attorneys general.

(Alexandria, VA.) – June 23, 2022: In 2018, North Carolina passed an election integrity law that included voter ID requirements. The governor vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode the veto. The NAACP sued the governor and the North Carolina Board of Elections alleging that the election integrity law violated the constitution.

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered a win for election integrity by allowing lawmakers to defend laws passed by some legislatures.

The state legislative leaders filed a motion to intervene to defend the law since they believed the North Carolina Attorney General would not adequately defend the law. The District Court and the Fourth Circuit denied their motion to intervene. Today, the Supreme Court ruled in Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP that North Carolina’s legislative leaders are entitled to intervene in this litigation.

This case demonstrates the lawlessness that has affected our elections when there are factions within a state that may sabotage the defense of the state’s election laws.

Today’s decision was a major defeat for the NAACP and the organization’s efforts to undermine the power of the people to defend their own laws in court.

“The actions – or in this case the complete inaction of the North Carolina Attorney General and Board of Elections – left a strong impression on the Supreme Court,” said PILF President J. Christian Adams.  “It recognized the obvious – they were phoning it in. The people responsible for defending North Carolina election integrity laws weren’t defending them.”

In 2020, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filed a motion to intervene in this case and, like the state legislators, was denied.