WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a Republican bid to revive a strict North Carolina voter-identification law that a lower court found deliberately discriminated against black voters, handing a victory to Democrats and civil rights groups.

FILE PHOTO: Citizens vote on a basketball court at a recreation center serving as polling place during the U.S. general election in Greenville, North Carolina, U.S. November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo

The justices’ decision not to take up a Republican appeal in the important voting rights dispute set no legal precedent and did not rule out the possibility that the court, with a 5-4 conservative majority, would endorse such laws in future. North Carolina’s law was one of a number of similar statutes passed by Republican-controlled states.

“Today’s announcement is good news for North Carolina voters. We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder,” said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat who took office in January and asked the court not to take up the case.

The justices left in place a July 2016 ruling by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that voided the law passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor.

The appeals court found that the law’s provisions “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision” and “impose cures for problems that did not exist,” concluding that the Republican-led legislature enacted it “with discriminatory intent.”

Republicans have said laws like the one in North Carolina are needed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats have said such laws are voter suppression measures intended to make it harder for groups that tend to back Democratic candidates, including black and Hispanic voters, to cast ballots.

The North Carolina law required that certain forms of government-issued photo identification cards be presented by voters, for example allowing driver’s licenses, passports and military identification cards but not public assistance cards used disproportionately by minorities. Other provisions included cutting early voting days and ending same-day voter registration.

The Supreme Court could yet be asked to review a similar Texas law now under challenge in lower courts. In April, a federal judge ruled that the law was enacted with the intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a two-page statement indicating the move not to hear the North Carolina case should not be interpreted as saying anything about the merits of the statute. Roberts said one reason for rejecting the case was a “blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this court under North Carolina law.”

The court typically does not explain its reasoning behind rejecting a case.

‘STRONG MESSAGE’

Civil rights groups hailed Monday’s action.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court has decided to allow the 4th Circuit’s ruling to stand, confirming that discrimination has no place in our democracy and elections. This ruling sends a strong message that lawmakers in North Carolina should stop enacting laws that discriminate based on race,” said Allison Riggs, a lawyer with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, one of the groups that challenged the law.

Governor Cooper and North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Stein, had told the justices they wanted to drop the state’s appeal of the 4th Circuit ruling. But the Republican-led state legislature said it should be able to intervene to defend the law. The appeal was filed by Cooper’s predecessor, Republican Pat McCrory.

“In light of Chief Justice Roberts’ statement that the ruling was not based on the merits of voter ID, all North Carolinians can rest assured that Republican legislators will continue fighting to protect the integrity of our elections by implementing the commonsense requirement to show a photo ID when we vote,” North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger and House of Representatives Speaker Tim Moore, Republicans who backed the law, said in a joint statement.

Myrna Perez, a lawyer at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law that has challenged the Texas law, said the Supreme Court is likely to take up that case or a similar dispute from Wisconsin.

In the meantime, Republican state lawmakers remain eager to enact new voter restrictions. Four states — Iowa, Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana — have passed such measures this year alone, according to the Brennan Center.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at the dedication of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, U.S., September 24, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Perez said “there is a bullishness from legislators” about imposing voter restrictions, with Republican President Donald Trump’s administration backing conservative allegations of widespread voter fraud and conservative Justice Neil Gorusch recently appointed by Trump to the court to restore its conservative majority.

Civil rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and individual voters sued to block North Carolina’s statute, saying it violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and provisions of a civil rights law called the Voting Rights Act.

North Carolina passed the law weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 to eliminate a requirement that states with a history of discrimination receive federal approval before changing election laws.</s>In a victory for voting rights advocates, the Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from North Carolina’s Republican leaders and let stand a decision that struck down their 2013 law that added new restrictions on voting.

The 4th Circuit Court had branded the law as racially biased and said North Carolina lawmakers had targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision.”

North Carolina lawmakers took action immediately after the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote had voided part of the historic Voting Rights Act that required some states, including North Carolina, to get federal approval before altering their voting laws.

The new North Carolina measure made five changes, including restricting early voting, which had been used more often by African American voters, and by requiring registered voters to show one of several photo ID cards at the polls. The appeals court noted the state had chosen the types of photo IDs that were less likely to be held by African Americans.

Then Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, slammed the decision and lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court. Last year, four of the high court’s conservative justices had signaled they were prepared to block the lower court ruling and revive the law. They then lacked a fifth vote due to the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

But the situation changed in November when the state’s voters ousted McCrory and narrowly elected Democrat Roy Cooper. And he and the state’s attorney general, also a Democrat, recently told the high court they did not wish to appeal the lower court’s ruling.

At the same time, , the GOP-controlled legislature said it did wish to have the appeal heard.

After considering the issue for several weeks, the Supreme Court announced Monday it would not hear the case.

“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that the ‘denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,’” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said.

The court’s action sets no legal precedent, but it likely ends the litigation over the North Carolina law.

Voting rights advocates hailed the demise of the North Carolina law.

“An ugly chapter in voter suppression is finally closing,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court has decided to allow the 4th Circuit’s ruling to stand, confirming that discrimination has no place in our democracy and elections,” said Allison Riggs, senior staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “This ruling sends a strong message that lawmakers in North Carolina should stop enacting laws that discriminate based on race.”

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Senate approval of Trump's trade chief could speed up NAFTA talks</s>In some good news coming out of Washington, D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina’s restrictive voter identification law, which a lower court ruled targeted African Americans.

The law, put forth by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2013, was enacted after the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that gutted the federal Voting Rights Act, which helped to curb voter suppression.

After that law was challenged by civil rights groups, a trial judge agreed that the new N.C. law was not unconstitutional, but a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Viriginia, disagreed. That court ruled that the law’s photo ID requirement and reduction in early voting was discriminatory.

The Supreme Court recently agreed with that decision, though Chief Justice John Roberts was clear to note that that the rejection of the appeal is not a comment on the court’s view about the substance of the law, according to the Associated Press.

The New York Times reports that the appeals court ruling struck down five parts of the law: its voter ID requirements, a rollback of early voting to 10 days from 17, an elimination of same-day registration and of preregistration of some teenagers, and its ban on counting votes cast in the wrong precinct.

The court also found that the early voting restrictions had a much larger effect on black voters, who “disproportionately used the first seven days of early voting.” The law, the court said, eliminated one of two “souls-to-the-polls” Sundays when black churches provided rides to polling places. Because of these facts, the court stated that the law targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

North Carolina is just one of many states that enacted laws that made it more difficult for mostly young and minority voters (who tend to vote Democrat) to exercise their rights. Many Republican-led legislatures say the new laws are to protect the “integrity” of the voting process and avoid voter fraud, but there is no evidence to support this so-called fraud, and many civil rights groups see the new laws as a systemic means of voter suppression.

After the Supreme Court’s decision to weaken the Voting Rights act, voters, civil rights groups and the Obama administration quickly filed lawsuits challenging the new laws. Four months ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar voter ID law in Texas.

Shortly before President Trump took office in January, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject the North Carolina appeal.

Which it did. Thankfully.

Wisconsin’s Restrictive Voter ID Laws May Have Given Trump The Election</s>The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina's voter identification law, which a lower court said targeted African-Americans "with almost surgical precision."The justices on Monday left in place the lower court ruling striking down the law's photo ID requirement and reduction in early voting.The situation was complicated when Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein tried to withdraw the appeal, which was first filed when Republican Pat McCrory was governor."Today's announcement is good news for North Carolina voters," Cooper said Monday. "We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder - and the Court found this law sought to discriminate against African-American voters with 'surgical precision.' I will continue to work to protect the right of every legal, registered North Carolinian to participate in our democratic process."Chief Justice John Roberts said the political situation created uncertainty over who is authorized to seek review of the lower court ruling.The dispute is similar to the court fight over Texas' voter ID law, also struck down as racially discriminatory.Republicans in both states moved to enact new voting measures after the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that had required them to get advance approval before changing laws dealing with elections.Voters, civil rights groups and the Obama administration quickly filed lawsuits challenging the new laws. The Trump administration already has dropped its objections to the Texas law.Shortly before Trump took office in January, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject the North Carolina appeal.When the law passed, North Carolina Republicans said voter ID is a sound requirement to increase the integrity of elections. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state provided no evidence of the kind of in-person voter fraud the ID mandate would address. The Richmond, Virginia-based court said the law was enacted with intentional bias against black voters. The law was amended in 2015 to include a method for people unable to get a photo ID to still vote.Following the appellate ruling, the state asked the high court to allow the challenged provisions to remain in effect in November's election. The justices rejected the request by virtue of a 4-4 tie on most of the challenged provisions, with the four more conservative justices supporting the state's bid.Roberts cautioned Monday that the rejection of the appeal is not a comment on the court's view about the substance of the law.</s>The Supreme Court will not review North Carolina’s invalidated Voter ID Law, leaving in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that had struck down the law. A lower court ruled that some provisions in the law "target African Americans with almost surgical precision," and therefore unconstitutional.

The controversial law passed in June, 2013, required photo identification at the polls, reduced early voting hours, and eliminated same day registration as well as out-of-precinct balloting. The NAACP was the first of several groups to file suit, claiming that the law disproportionately burdened minority voters.

At first the law was upheld in a Federal District Court in Winston-Salem. Judge Thomas Schroeder ruled the law constitutional, in part because the plaintiffs had failed to adequately demonstrate the law had discriminated against black and Latino voters. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Schroeder's ruling and found in favor of the NAACP challenge. That was then appealed to the nation’s highest court, which on Monday announced it would not hear the case.

Former governor Pat McCrory supported the law as well as the appeal to the Supreme Court, but the situation was complicated when Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein won the 2016 election and subsequently tried to withdraw the appeal.

Importantly, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case mainly because of who represented the appeal. Chief Justice John Roberts said the political situation created uncertainty over who is authorized to seek review of the lower court ruling.

"Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that '[t]he denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,'" Roberts wrote.

He stressed that there should not be anything read into the decision not to hear the case, leaving open the possibility that a similar case might reach the Supreme Court.

The dispute is similar to the court fight over Texas' voter ID law, also struck down as racially discriminatory.

In a released statement, Gov. Cooper praised the ruling: "Today's announcement is good news for North Carolina voters. We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder – and the Court found this law sought to discriminate against African-American voters with 'surgical precision.'</s>The Supreme Court is letting stand a lower court opinion from last summer that struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law.

The law was challenged by civil rights groups and the Obama administration, which argued that it had a disparate impact on minority voters.

The North Carolina General Assembly had urged the court to review a lower court decision that held the law targeted “African-Americans with almost surgical precision.” The Supreme Court declined to weigh in, but Chief Justice John Roberts wrote separately to stress that the denial should not be read as an endorsement of the lower court’s decision.

The case was complicated by the fact that after the election, North Carolina’s new governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, moved to dismiss the appeal, while lawyers for the General Assembly urged the court to move forward.

“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in the court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that the denial of writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion on the merits,” Roberts wrote in a statement.

Last summer, the Supreme Court denied a request to allow provisions of the law to go back into effect for the 2016 election. The court was split 4-4.</s>The U.S. Supreme Court has declined once again to reinstate North Carolina's strict voter ID law, which was struck down last year after a court ruled it was intentionally designed to stop African-Americans from voting.

The nation's highest court refused to consider an appeal by North Carolina Republicans, NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

"Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the court's refusal to consider an appeal did not signify an opinion on the merits of the case," Pam says.

It's not the first time the Supreme Court has considered an appeal over the law, which was one of the country's strictest. It was put in place after the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and cleared the way for states with a history of discrimination to craft new voting laws without federal oversight.

Michael Tomsic of member station WFAE wrote last fall about the lengthy battle over North Carolina's law, which was ostensibly meant to combat voter fraud:



"That fight began in 2013, when the state made cuts to early voting, created a photo ID requirement and eliminated same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting, and pre-registration of high school students. "More than half of all voters there use early voting, and African-Americans do so at higher rates than whites. African-Americans also tend to overwhelmingly vote for Democrats."



Those provisions of the law were struck down in July 2016 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In its ruling, the appeals court said the law was intentionally designed to discriminate against black people. North Carolina legislators had requested data on voting patterns by race, and then, with that data in hand, drafted a law that would "target African Americans with almost surgical precision," the court said.

The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to reinstate the law in time for elections.

The legal drama continued, as David Boraks of WFAE reports:

"The state and then-Governor Pat McCrory appealed the Fourth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court. As the Supreme Court discussed whether to hear the case, the state under a new Democratic governor Roy Cooper asked to withdraw the appeal."

That's the appeal the high court announced Monday that it will not be hearing.

Voting rights have been making headlines again this month, after President Trump announced the creation of a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud.

"Numerous independent investigations have concluded that voter fraud exists, but is extremely limited in scope," Pam reported last week.

Critics said the commission would justify voter suppression efforts, while state election officials are worried it could "divert attention from other serious concerns, such as aging equipment and the threat of hacking," Pam wrote.</s>North Carolina voter ID rules are posted at the door of a voting station at the Alamance Fire Station in Greensboro, N.C., on March 15, 2016.

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina's voter identification law that a lower court said targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

The justices on Monday left in place the lower court ruling striking down the law's photo ID requirement and reduction in early voting.

The situation was complicated when Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Atty. Gen. Josh Stein tried to withdraw the appeal, which was first filed when Republican Pat McCrory was governor.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the political situation created uncertainty over who is authorized to seek review of the lower-court ruling.

The dispute is similar to the court fight over Texas' voter ID law, also struck down as racially discriminatory.</s>The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal seeking to reinstate North Carolina's controversial 2013 voter ID law. The decision lets stand a 2016 decision by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that invalidated the law.

The law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature required voters to show an approved ID and reduced the number of early voting days. It also eliminated same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting and pre-registration by 16-year-olds.

The American Civil Liberties Union and North Carolina NAACP sued, and initially lost the case in federal District Court. They appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which reversed the ruling.

A three-judge panel of the Appeals Court concluded unanimously that lawmakers passed the law with discriminatory intent. In her opinion, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz noted that lawmakers had data showing the law's racial impact, and said they targeted African-Americans with "almost surgical precision."

Opponents of the law said it disproportionately affected African-Americans and was designed to suppress their votes.

The state and then-governor Pat McCrory appealed the Fourth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court. As the Supreme Court discussed whether to hear the case, the state under a new Democratic governor Roy Cooper asked to withdraw the appeal.

On Monday, Cooper welcomed the Supreme Court's decision in a statement:

“Today’s announcement is good news for North Carolina voters. We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder," he said.

Dale Ho of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project said the law "is meeting its much-deserved demise. An ugly chapter in voter suppression is finally closing.”</s>In a coup for voting rights activists, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a ruling last year that struck down key parts of North Carolina's voting law. The law, enacted in 2013 by the General Assembly's GOP majority, imposed a range of voting restrictions, including new voter ID requirements, shorter early-voting periods, elimination, and same-day registration.

 

 Monday's decision essentially leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling, which concluded that Republicans targeted African-Americans "with almost surgical precision."



The law, SL 2013–381, required voters to present an approved ID, reduced the early voting period to ten from seventeen days, and got rid of out-of-precinct voting, same-day registration, and preregistration by sixteen-year-olds.

The law was challenged by a group of plaintiffs, including the North Carolina branch of the NAACP, and was later joined by the U.S. Justice Department. In July, the federal appeals court for the U.S. Fourth District found that the law had been passed with with "discriminatory intent."

As Diana Gibbon Motz of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote: "Although the new provisions target

 African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.

 



The state justice department under Governor McCrory appealed the finding, but after Governor Cooper took office, he notified the court that the state would not appeal the decision. The Republican leadership of the General Assembly then attempted to pursue the appeal on its own.

An email requesting comment from Senate leader Phil Berger was not immediately returned.

In a statement released along with the refusal, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts made reference to the "blizzard of findings" over who might appropriately appeal in a statement. Roberts also noted pointedly that the refusal to hear the case did not mean that the high court agreed with the lower court's decision to strike down the law.

 

 Cooper released a statement Monday morning endorsing the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the appeal.

“Today’s announcement is good news for North Carolina voters. We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder—and the Court found this law sought to discriminate against African-American voters with ‘surgical precision,’” the governor said in his statement. "I will continue to work to protect the right of every legal, registered North Carolinian to participate in our democratic process."

Meanwhile, NC GOP Chairman Robin Hayes blasted the Court’s ruling. 

 

 "Governor Roy Cooper and Attorney General Stein have blocked the people’s desire for voter I.D. and other common-sense voting protections," Hayes said in a statement. "However, as noted by Chief Justice Roberts, 'The denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.' Republicans will continue to fight for common sense and constitutional voter I.D. measures, similar to what many other states already have. While Governor Cooper and Attorney General Stein have stymied voter I.D. for now, they will ultimately lose in their efforts to block North Carolina citizens from having these protections."

 

 On Twitter, the NC GOP announced that it would be holding a press conference in response to the decision Monday afternoon.

 



Cooper took office on January 1. He and state Attorney General Josh Stein withdrew the state's petition to appeal the Fourth Circuit decision in February.

"Voting is how people hold their government accountable," Stein said then in a statement announcing the decision to withdraw. "I support efforts to guarantee fair and honest elections, but those efforts should not be used as an excuse to make it harder for people to vote."

The N.C. State Board of Elections released an audit last month showing that 508 North Carolinians had voted illegally in the 2016 elections. Of them, voter ID could have prevented one from voting.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the North Carolina state legislative members do not have standing to request an appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling against a law which it found discriminated against black voters.