State on collision course with Justice Department over bill experts say will damage rights of poor, elderly and minorities

North Carolina is set to introduce what experts say is the most "repressive" attack on the rights of African American voters in decades, barely a month after the US supreme court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

The bill, which was passed by the state's Republican-dominated legislature this week, puts North Carolina on collision course with Eric Holder, the attorney general, who has announced plans to protect voter rights in Texas.

Civil rights advocates and experts in election law are stunned by the scope of the new law. What began in April as a 14-page bill mainly focused on introducing more stringent ID rules, ostensibly to guard against voter fraud, snowballed over the last week as it passed through the North Carolina senate. By the time it was passed by both houses late on Thursday night, the bill had become a 57-page document containing a raft of measures opposed by voting rights organisations.

If the bill is passed by the state's Republican governor, Pat McCrory, voters will be required to present government-issued photo IDs at the polls, and early voting will be shortened from 17 days to 10. Voting rights experts say studies reveal that both measures would disproportionately affect elderly and minority voters, and those likely to vote Democrat.

The bill also ends same-day registration. Instead, voters in the state will be required to register, update their address or make any other needed changes at least 25 days ahead of any election. It also abolishes a popular high-school civics program that registers tens of thousands of students to vote each year, in advance of their 18th birthdays. And it ends straight-ticket voting, the practice of voting for every candidate fielded by a party has on an election ballot, a provision that has been in place in the state since 1925.

Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California and one of the country's foremost experts on electoral law, said:

It rolls into a single piece of legislation just about all of the tools we've seen legislatures use in recent years to try to make it harder for people to register and vote.

Hasen described the bill as "probably the most suppressive voting measure passed in the United States in decades".

'A sad day'

Voting rights activists stand outside the supreme court in Washington. Photograph: MCT /Landov / Barcroft Media

The bill has only been made possible because of a controversial supreme court decision, handed down on 25 June, which effectively halted the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The law, one of the cornerstones of civil rights era, was designed to prevent racial discrimination against voters in North Carolina, Texas and other (mostly southern) States.

On Thursday, in an effort to get round the supreme court ruling, Holder announced his department would be asking a federal court in San Antonio to require the state of Texas to obtain advance approval before putting future certain election decisions in place. Holder also promised to take "aggressive action against any jurisdiction that attempts to hinder free and fair access to the franchise". It now seems likely that North Carolina will be next on his list of targets.

William Yeomans, a law professor in Washington and a former chief of staff in the Justice Department, said Texas and North Carolina may just be the start of a series of legal battles over voter rights in states across the country. Voter ID laws in Alabama and Mississippi could be possible future targets.

Yeomans said the North Carolina legislation represented "a sad day" for democracy in the US.

It is clearly designed to suppress the vote. It is clearly designed to reshape the electorate to suite the needs of the Republican party. One of the ways they are going to do that is by disenfranchising minority voters.

He added: "It was sadly predictable that this sort of thing was going to happen once the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act."

Before last month's supreme court ruling, North Carolina would have been required to seek permission from a federal court or the Justice Department before enacting its rules changes. The requirement, known as "preclearance", was designed to ensure voting changes in certain jurisdictions were not discriminatory.

After the supreme court's ruling, state legislators can alter their voting rules without federal interference – although they are still open to challenge in the courts. Unless Governor McCrory objects to the rule changes passed this week, they will come into effect in just over a month's time.

Sonia Gill, associate counsel at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, described the bill as the "most repressive" legislation she had recently come across. "It throws everything that might damage voter rights in one large package of changes that is going to be devastating for voters in North Carolina," she said.

In addition to the voting rights changes, the North Carolina bill weakens transparency regulations designed to reveal who is underwriting campaign ads. Political parties will be enabled to rake in unlimited corporate donations. The cap on individual campaign donations in North Carolina will rise from $4,000 to $5,000.

'We understand there will be lawsuits'

Protests against decisions made by North Carolina lawmakers can be read on signs made by members of a grassroots movement fighting budget cuts and attacks on democracy. Photograph: Dj Werner/ DJ Werner/Demotix/Corbis

Defending the changes, Republicans in the state claimed the changes will restore faith in elections and prevent voter fraud, which they claim is endemic and undetected. However, records show only a handful of documented cases of in-person voter fraud prosecuted in the state over the last decade, out of 30 million ballots cast.

"We understand there will be lawsuits," said the state senate leader, Phil Berger.

It's our belief the laws we are passing are consistent with constitutional requirements and they will be upheld.

Nonpartisan voting rights groups argue that the true goal is suppressing voter turnout among the young, the old, the poor and minorities. They point out that the changes will almost certainly benefit the Republicans legislators who are implementing them.

Although the new voting rules are likely to be challenged, the recent supreme court ruling deprives civil rights attorneys of one of the key instruments used to challenge electoral rules that are perceived to be discriminatory.

In the Texas case, which relates to redistricting, the Justice Department is filing what is known as a statement of interest, in support of the private groups that have filed suit. The move rests on a case last year in Texas, in which evidence was presented of "intentional" discrimination in the way electoral districts were drawn-up.

However the clause that allows the department to intervene in Texas cannot currently be applied in North Carolina. If the department chooses to challenge North Carolina's legislation, it will need to find another section of the Voting Rights Act that survived the supreme court ruling – or another legal statute altogether.

Either way, well-placed observers say that Holder's department is likely to find a way to challenge North Carolina. "I think they are likely to get involved in this one," said Richard Hasen, whose latest book examines "voting wars" across the US since 2000. "It is pretty clear that they are going for broke here. They are going to go after these states as aggressively as they can."

In his speech this week, Holder sounded defiant. He said he would not be discouraged by the supreme court decision on the Voting Rights Act and promised to "fully utilise the law's remaining sections to ensure that the voting rights of all American citizens are protected". After announcing legal action against Texas, Holder also made a point of criticising an attempted photo ID law in South Carolina. He also said that while the action in Texas was the first step by the department since the supreme court decision, "it will not be our last".

Matthew Miller, a Justice Department press spokesman until 2011 who remains close to Holder, said North Carolina's measure would "almost certainly" elicit a legal challenge from the department. "It is very hard to look at this legislation and see it as anything other than an attempt to stop people from voting," he said."They can cloak it in as much of the anti-fraud language they want but it is just a naked power grab.

"If you do an analysis of the Texas statute and find it is discriminatory, it is hard to see how you would not reach the same conclusion with this statute in North Carolina."