The Supreme Court has denied a case involving the controversial North Carolina voter ID law. In the court’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts explained it was unclear who represented the state. Therefore, a federal appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of the law will remain in place.
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In the federal appeals court decision, the judges concluded that the voter ID law was discriminatory.
The court found that all five restrictions “disproportionately affected African-Americans.” The law’s voter identification provision, for instance, “retained only those types of photo ID disproportionately held by whites and excluded those disproportionately held by African-Americans.”
The North Carolina law mandated, in part, a stricter form of voter identification, that early voting be rolled back from 17 to 10 days, and an elimination of same-day registration.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law a few years ago, applauded the Supreme Court's decision Monday.
“This law, enacted with what the appeals court called discriminatory intent and ‘almost surgical precision’ targeting African-American voters, is meeting its much-deserved demise,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “An ugly chapter in voter suppression is finally closing.”
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