On January 26, both sides filed briefs in the case over whether North Carolina violated the U.S. Constitution when it abolished primaries for judicial races, which are partisan races. The Democratic Party’s five-page brief, responds to the judge’s request for a brief on how the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party bears on the current North Carolina case. The current North Carolina case is over the legislature’s eliminating partisan primaries for judicial office. The Democratic Party wants its primary back.

On the same day, the state also filed a five-page brief on that point. Both briefs have problems. If the Democratic Party brief were to be believed, then the Louisiana election system would be unconstitutional, yet no one has ever tried to invalidate the current Louisiana system, in which there are no primaries. The state’s brief is somewhat misleading because it does not mention that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t decide whether a party’s associational rights are violated when party labels appear on the ballot but parties don’t have nominees. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower courts for more fact-finding.