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.
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.”