While I don't know much about this Black Panther case and the legal implications or cost-benefit of this or that manner of handling it, I have to wonder if Coates feels that years of non-enforcement of certain sections of the NVRA by the DOJ was derived from race-neutral decision making? Lax enforcement of the NVRA, particularly Section 7, encouraged states and local governments to ignore the law, violating millions of adult citizens' rights. No small potatoes. 

Starting in 2004 several organizations provided DOJ with substantial evidence (easily gathered) that states were not following provisions in the NVRA that helped register to vote low-income and disabled citizens at social service agencies (a group that is disproportionately female and disproportionately non-white, although the sheer size of the pool affected by non-compliance meant that the victims were a very diverse population). DOJ finally picked up interest in these violations many years later--after much pressure from Congress and after litigation by private plaintiffs further exposed the violations--but the response from DOJ was hardly overwhelming given the immense size of the problem. 

Presumably the number of people affected by a case should have some impact on its selection for attention from the DOJ. No? If so, why has Coates found this relatively small case so personally fascinating and not been equally upset about DOJ's past lax treatment of NVRA violations?

[Opinions expressed in my emails are mine alone and not those of any institution for which I have worked or consulted.]