Court divided on NC voting law

by Jesse Byrnes - 10/01/14 3:22 PM ET

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld same-day voter registration and the inclusion of out-of-precinct ballots in North Carolina, while backing other provisions of the state’s controversial new voting law.

In a 2-1 decision on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said a lower district court “abused its discretion” by refusing to block two measures in the law eliminating the practices.

{mosads}Judges James Wynn and Henry Floyd said in their ruling that “there can be no doubt” the measures “disproportionately impact minority voters.”

The appellate court upheld, however, the district court’s ruling that denied a request to hold off implementing some of the law’s other components, such as a reduction of early-voting days and an expansion of the number of poll watchers.

It also upheld a ban on county election boards keeping polls open an extra hour in “extraordinary circumstances,” a ban on preregistering 16- and 17-year-olds ineligible to vote by the next general election and the initial rollout of voter ID laws set to go into effect in 2016.

While those who challenged these other provisions in the law might ultimately win at trial, the judges said in their majority opinion, they have so far “not met their burden of satisfying all elements necessary for a preliminary injunction.”

In her dissent, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz said she was “troubled” by the district court’s belief that eliminating a week of early voting via provisional out-of-precinct ballots gave minority voters “ample opportunity” to cast ballots, reiterating similar sentiments for the same-day registration provision.

Motz wrote that, amid the case’s 11,000-page record, the lower court “neither established a clear likelihood of success on the merits, nor demonstrated, particularly at this late juncture, that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in their favor.”

“At the end of the day, we cannot escape the district court’s repeated findings that Plaintiffs presented undisputed evidence showing that same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting were enacted to increase voter participation,” the two judges admitted in their majority opinion.

Motz said it was too close to the election to reverse the decision.

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The North Carolina rules were signed into law Aug. 12, 2013. Lawsuits, including one by the Justice Department, challenged certain provisions in the law as unconstitutional and in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The case will go back to the district court.

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