A federal appeals court struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law on Friday (July 29), finding that a series of provisions approved by lawmakers in 2013 were “enacted with racially discriminatory intent.”
Among the voter registration changes made in North Carolina were requirements that voters show identification before casting ballots and a reduction in the amount the time allowed for early voting.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit overturned a lower court’s decision, which had dismissed challenges to the law, with the three-judge panel instead finding that the laws “disproportionately affected African-Americans” by targeting them “with almost surgical precision.” It represents the third time in two weeks that federal courts have issued rebukes of states’ voter identification laws.
“In holding that the legislature did not enact the challenged provisions with discriminatory intent, the court seems to have missed the forest in carefully surveying the many trees,” wrote Circuit Court Judge Diana Gribbon Motz for the majority in the 83-page opinion. “This failure of perspective led the court to ignore critical facts bearing on legislative intent, including the inextricable link between race and politics in North Carolina.”
The ruling blocks North Carolina from requiring photo identification from voters, restores voter preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds as well as a week of early voting, same-day voter registration, and out-of-precinct provisional voting.
The court’s decision has been of intense interest to both the Republican and Democratic parties ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential elections, with opponents of the North Carolina law saying that the ruling should increase voter participation by blacks and Hispanics in a what is regarded as a closely contested battleground state.
