Supreme Court order unlikely to deter voting restrictions
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s refusal to breathe new life into North Carolina’s sweeping voter identification law might be just a temporary victory for civil rights groups.
Republican-led states are continuing to enact new voter ID measures and other voting restrictions, and the Supreme Court’s newly reconstituted conservative majority, with the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch, could make the court less likely to invalidate the laws based on claims under the federal Voting Rights Act or the Constitution.
The justices on Monday left in place last summer’s ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the law’s photo ID requirement to vote in person and other provisions, which the lower court said targeted African-Americans “with almost surgical precision.”
But Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the court’s decision to stay out of the case rested on a partisan dispute over who had the authority to present North Carolina’s case to the court, not the justices’ views on the substance of the issue.