U.S. Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down North Carolina Voter ID Provision
Election workers checked voters’ identification in Asheville, N.C., in March.
GEORGE ETHEREDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ALAN BLINDER and MICHAEL WINES
July 29, 2016
A federal appeals court decisively struck down North Carolina’s voter identification law on Friday, saying its provisions deliberately “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision” in an effort to depress black turnout at the polls.
The sweeping decision upended voting procedures in a presidential-election battleground state barely three months before Election Day. It tossed out North Carolina’s requirement that voters present photo identification at the polls and restored voters’ ability to register on Election Day, to register before reaching the 18-year-old voting age, and to cast early ballots, provisions the law had fully or partially eliminated.
The court also restored a provision that ensured that the ballots of people who mistakenly voted at the wrong polling station were deemed valid
The ruling by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, was an abrupt reversal of a late April decision in Federal District Court that Republicans had savored after years of bruising legal and political battles. Although the circuit panel praised a federal judge in Winston-Salem, N.C., for his “thoroughness,” it left little doubt about its view of voting practices in North Carolina, where Republicans pushed through a major overhaul beginning in 2013.
https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.ny...ision.amp.html
