Attorney General Eric Holder, who has said he will fight state voting laws that he sees as discriminatory, will announce the lawsuit at noon Monday, along with the three U.S. attorneys from the state. The suit, filed in Greensboro, N.C., asks that the state be barred from enforcing the new voter-ID law. But the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder found that the preclearance list itself  which is nearly 40 years old  was outdated and unconstitutional. The North Carolina ID law, which was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed the voter ID measure into law last last month. This common-sense safeguard is commonplace.” 
 
 A law mandating a photo ID for voting was not on the books in North Carolina during the 2012 presidential election. (PHOTOS: 7 controversial voter ID quotes) 
 
 DOJ’s lawsuit objects to the law’s photo ID requirement as well as three other key provisions: the elimination of the first seven days of early voting that took place in 2012, the end to same-day voter registration during the early voting period, and the end to the option of provisional ballots for voters who show up at the wrong polling place. The chief of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Jocelyn Samuels, said the lawsuit argues that the law has the “purpose, intent and effect of discriminating on the basis of race.” 
 
 A North Carolina Board of Elections study in April of this year found that more than 300,000 registered voters in the state did not have a Department of Motor Vehicles-issued ID. Hall said African-Americans are 23 percent of registered voters in North Carolina but made up 29 percent of early voters in 2012, 30 percent of those who cast out-of-precinct ballots, 34 percent of the 318,000 registered voters without state-issued IDs, and 41 percent of those who used same-day registration. Critics said the law will disenfranchise African-American and elderly voters, while the Republican-led General Assembly in Raleigh said the law will protect the states voters from potential fraud. In addition to asking that the Voter ID law be struck down, the Justice Department is seeking to have North Carolina put back on the preclearance list that requires the federal government to approve changes to voter laws. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, which required a handful of mostly Southern states to get approval from the Justice Department before making changes to their voting laws. Civil rights advocates have insisted that the Voting Rights Act puts a greater burden on states seeking to restrict voting when doing so disproportionately affects minority groups.
– North Carolina passed a controversial voter ID law in July, but if the Department of Justice has its way, the law—said to be the most sweeping of its kind in the nation—may never be enforced. The DOJ will file suit against the state today, a source tells Politico and the Charlotte Observer; Eric Holder is expected to make the announcement later today. The suit accuses North Carolina of violating the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against black voters, and asks that the state be barred from enforcing the law—which was scheduled to go into effect for the 2016 elections. It also seeks to put North Carolina back on a "preclearance" list, meaning all changes to voting laws and procedures would need to first be approved by the DOJ or a federal court. Forty North Carolina counties were subject to preclearance until June, when the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. But the DOJ can use another VRA provision to attempt to put states back under preclearance, as it is also doing in Texas. The problem with the voter ID law, as the DOJ sees it: Just 22% of registered voters in North Carolina are African American, but they make up 34% of the voters who do not have a DMV-issued ID (and thus would not be allowed to vote). The DOJ suit will also take issue with three other parts of the law: the elimination of provisional ballots for voters who go to the incorrect polling place (30% of out-of-precinct voters last year were African American); the elimination of some early voting days (29% of early voters last year were African American); and the elimination of same-day voter registration during early voting (41% of voters using same-day registration were African American).