North Carolina leaders have to lay out some of their arguments Monday for how they'll defend the state's sweeping new voting law from court challenges. Monday is the deadline for the state to file a response to lawsuits brought by the North Carolina NAACP and ACLU.
The NAACP and ACLU are trying to convince a federal court in Greensboro that the state's new voting law is discriminatory.
The groups argue in lawsuits that cutting early voting, getting rid of same-day registration, requiring photo ID and other parts of the law will make it much harder for minorities to vote.
Donita Judge is an attorney representing the NAACP.
"We fired the first shot," she said. "Now they're responding to our lawsuits as to why the governor and the elected officials believe that this type of restrictive bill was warranted."
Governor Pat McCrory and Republican lawmakers who passed the bill have defended it in public statements. For example, they've said that the early voting changes are not discriminatory, and that requiring photo ID is a common-sense change.
Donita Judge expects the court response to go into much more detail. It's due at midnight.
The U.S. Justice Department has also sued North Carolina over the voting law. The federal court in Greensboro may decide to lump that lawsuit together with the NAACP and ACLU suits.
