The U.S. Supreme Court Monday denied N.C. Republican legislators' appeal to review the 2013 voter ID law. The ruling the lower court made last summer, which struck down the law because it disproportionately affected African-Americans’ ability to vote in the state, will stand.
The law required citizens to show photo identification, reduced early voting periods from 17 days to 10 days, prohibited same-day registration when voting early and eliminated pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds.
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law targeted African-Americans with “almost surgical precision” and that “the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent.”
“Today’s announcement is good news for North Carolina voters,” N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder.”
The Supreme Court’s decision was not based on the merits of the law but because of
Cooper and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein filed motions asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition in January. The General Assembly objected as a dispute ensued over which party has the right to represent the states' interests in court — the General Assembly or the State Attorney General — with both parties filing further motions to the Supreme Court. This dispute was the basis of the court’s decision not to hear the appeal.
“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in the two-page order. “It is important to recall our frequent admonition that ‘the denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.’”
N.C. Speaker of the House Tim Moore,
“All North Carolinians can rest assured that Republican legislators will continue fighting to protect the integrity of our elections by implementing the
