US government, lawyers want voter ID ruling enforced
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The federal government and others who sued to overturn North Carolina's voter identification law told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday that keeping the photo ID mandate and other rules in place for the November elections would harm black voters and increase confusion.
Their lawyers also want early in-person voting restored to 17 days in the fall election season because the 2013 law, which had reduced it to 10 days, was struck down justifiably for racial discrimination. They were responding to last week's request by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and other state officials to delay a ruling by a lower appeals court striking down several sections of the law.
Last month, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Republican-led General Assembly enacted the 2013 law with intentional discrimination in mind by targeting black voters more likely to support Democrats.
"Once an electoral law has been found to be racially discriminatory, and injunctive relief has been found to be necessary to remedy that discrimination, the normal rule is that the operation of the law must be suspended," wrote Ian Heath Gershengorn, the acting U.S. solicitor general. He warned that failing to suspend the law "would inflict irreparable injury on minority voters."
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