The U.S. Supreme Court declined Wednesday to reinstate North Carolina’s voting restrictions for the November election.
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It takes a majority of the court to grant a stay, however, which meant that five justices would have needed to have voted for a stay in order for it to be granted. Pat McCrory and state officials to delay a permanent injunction blocking provisions of the state’s 2013 voting ID law.
Last month, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law was discriminatory, created to “target African Americans with nearly surgical precision”.
On July 29, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the state’s strict voting law, passed in 2013.
The high court rejected the state’s bid to halt much of the federal appeals court ruling, splitting 4-4 along ideological lines on the central questions. Justice Clarence Thomas would have allowed the entire law to take effect.
The court has been operating without a full complement of nine justices since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February and the refusal of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to consider President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to replace him.
Wednesday’s opinion again showed how the Scalia vacancy continues “to boomerang against the GOP”, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who has followed the North Carolina voting case.
A three-judge panel said the provisions “target African Americans with nearly surgical precision”, violating the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee and the Voting Rights Act.
A ninth justice chosen by Democrat Hillary Clinton would nearly certainly vote with the court’s liberal justices on this issue. North Carolina was one of those areas, and it initiated its voting law the day after the Shelby County decision came down.
Voting rights activists have pushed back against that notion, saying that the laws enable the state’s most vulnerable citizens to exercise their franchise.
“Certainly in the voting area, we’re likely to see more of it”, he said. Thanks to a split decision, the court won’t hear a challenge to an appeals court ruling that killed parts of the law.
The Supreme Court’s move is a significant setback for Gov.
The boards also adopted an early voting schedule that roughly reflects the same schedule they had in place in 2012.
Moments after his statement, McCrory’s deputy campaign manager, Billy Constangy, cited the court order in a fundraising appeal.
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The outcome also may give a slight boost to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who will need strong support from minority voters to prevail in November.
