Supreme Court won’t let North Carolina use strict voting law

The Supreme Court will not allow North Carolina in the November election to use its strict voting law that a lower court found was enacted “with almost surgical precision” to blunt the influence of African American voters.

An evenly divided court said Wednesday that it would not restore the law that a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found unconstitutional. The court’s short order did not give the justices’ reasoning. It was not a ruling on the merits of the law but instead on an emergency stay request filed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) to use the law this fall, as the state had in previous elections.

The court’s four conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — would have granted most of North Carolina’s request.

But they were unable to find a necessary fifth vote from one of the court’s four liberals.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-wont-let-north-carolina-use-strict-voting-law/2016/08/31/b5187080-6ed6-11e6-8533-6b0b0ded0253_story.html