The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear North Carolina’s appeal to reinstate voting restrictions, the New York Times reports. The announcement ensures a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge’s ruling that struck down elements of the 2013 voter ID law will be left in place.
At the time of the initial ruling, the lower court judge said North Carolina’s law targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
In a statement issued on Monday, Justice John Roberts said the court’s decision to decline to hear the case came from a dispute over who was representing North Carolina in the case, and was not indicative of any decision into the validity of 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,” Roberts said, “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.'”
At the time of its passage in 2013, the law applied a range of voting restrictions: requiring a photo ID, doing away with out-of-precinct voting, cutting the early voting period from 17 days to 10, and removing the option for same-day registration and voting.
