Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
WASHINGTON — The North Carolina voting restrictions struck down by a federal appeals court earlier this summer will remain off the books for November's election, following a Supreme Court order on Wednesday.
The justices denied North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's request to halt enforcement of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down five voting restrictions while the state seeks Supreme Court review of the decision.
Among the provisions in the law that the appeals court has ordered the state not to enforce are limits on the type of photo ID required for voting; reductions to the amount of early voting in the state; and elimination of same-day registration, out-of-precinct provisional voting, and preregistration that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to indicate an intent to register when they turned 18.
The Obama administration and organizations that had sued the state over the law opposed the stay request.
Justice Clarence Thomas would have granted the stay as to all five provisions.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito would have granted the stay as to all of the provisions except for the preregistration provision.
In other words, as to most of the law, there was a 4-4 split on whether to grant McCrory's request and allow the state to enforce the voter ID, early voting reduction, and elimination of same-day registration and out-of-precinct provisional voting this fall.
It takes a majority of the court to grant a stay, however, which meant that five justices would have needed to have voted for a stay in order for it to be granted.
Notably, no justice provided a so-called "courtesy fifth vote" in support of the stay request — a move that Justice Stephen Breyer did take earlier this month when a the case of a transgender student presented the same scenario — of four justices willing to vote for a stay, which would be all that is needed in order for the court to take the appeal when the cert petition is before the justices, but not enough justices to grant a stay while that appeal is decided. In such circumstances, a justice can — as Breyer did in the earlier case — provide a "courtesy" fifth vote in order to allow for a stay while the cert petition can be considered.
On Wednesday, however, none of the four other justices — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — did so, leaving the 4th Circuit's injunction against North Carolina's voting restrictions in place.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2bCaQMp
0 comments:
Post a Comment