Federal judge upholds North Carolina voter ID law
A federal judge in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has upheld a North Carolina voter ID law that is among the strictest in the nation.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder ruled (PDF) on Monday in a challenge by the U.S. Justice Department and by several other plaintiffs, including the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, report the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Election Law Blog and the Associated Press. He found no violation of the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.
In addition to requiring a photo ID to vote, the law reduced the early voting period by seven days, repealed same-day registration and voting, eliminated preregistering to vote before age 18, and eliminated provisional voting in unassigned precincts.
Schroeder said the North Carolina law was not beyond “the mainstream of other states” and the plaintiffs had failed to show the law would “have materially adverse effects on the ability of minority voters to cast a ballot.” Schroder said African-Americans fared better in terms of registration and turnout rates in 2014, after the law was implemented, than in 2010, when the old law was in place.
“The 2014 data merely confirm what the remaining data suggest: that minorities enjoy equal and constitutionally compliant opportunity to participate in the electoral process,” Schroeder wrote.
Until the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, North Carolina had been required to obtain preclearance approval from the U.S. Justice Department before changing voting laws.
