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Summary: An appeals court has banned a law established in North Carolina restricting what photo ID’s people can use to vote with.
North Carolina’s attempt to establish a voter identification law has been struck down by a federal appeals court. The court ruled the law was “passed with racially discriminatory intent.” The court’s ruling also removed limits the law placed in 2013 on same day registration, preregistration, early voting, and out-of-precinct voting.
Read Ten More States Sue Over Transgender Student Rule.
The ruling comes as no surprise. The judges, all Democratic appointees, were ruling on a Republican-controlled state. They had very little trouble coming to the conclusion that requiring voters to show a specific type of photo ID at the polls violated the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act passed three years ago.
Judge Diana Motz said, “The record makes clear that the historical origin of the challenged provisions in this statute is not the innocuous back-and-forth of routine partisan struggle that the State suggests and that the district court accepted. Rather, the General Assembly enacted them in the immediate aftermath of unprecedented African American voter participation in a state with a troubled racial history and racially polarized voting. The district court clearly erred in ignoring or dismissing this historical background evidence, all of which supports a finding of discriminatory intent.”
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See Texas Permitted to Enforce Voter ID Law for November 4 Election.
Motz, an appointee of President Bill Clinton added, “We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history.”
It is unlikely that North Carolina will appeal the ruling to the full bench of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals or even Supreme Court. The Obama Administration was pressuring the appeals court to invalidate the law in North Carolina.
Do you think there should be any identification requirements to vote? Tell us in the comments below/
To learn more about other laws North Carolina has tried to enforce, read ACLU Sues North Carolina Over Transgender Bathroom Law.
Photo: businessinsider.com
