North Carolina's Voter ID Law Stands

…for now.

Last month, the Obama administration asked a federal judge to put North Carolina’s “stringent” new voting laws on hold until after the November midterm elections. The laws require voters to present government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot, and they eliminate same-day voter registration and Sunday voting, shorten the early-voting period, and eliminate early-voting registration for people turning 18 by Election Day. The voter ID portion of the law doesn’t go into effect until 2016.

What sort of responsible adult doesn’t have a state-issued form of photo identification? People you’d assume were intelligent actually argue that such laws are a burden on certain racial groups (people of East Asian descent excluded) and “the poor,” whom they say are less likely to have photo ID. Rather than being insulted by the insinuation, black liberals go along with the charade — all in the name of stirring up racial tension.

A federal court didn’t find this line of reasoning compelling. On Friday, the court denied the Obama administration’s motion to put the law on hold. The court contended (PDF) that the plaintiffs (Obama administration, the NAACP, and others) failed to demonstrate they were “likely to suffer irreparable harm – a necessary prerequisite for preliminary relief – before trial in the absence of an injunction.”

The court also denied their request to post federal observers at the polls.

Race, a suspect classification, is afforded the highest level of judicial scrutiny. Because the plaintiffs alleged racial discrimination, the evidence “certainly raises suspicions and presents substantial questions,” but North Carolina also presented “at least equally compelling evidence that the lawmakers acted rather for a legitimate State interest.”

In other words, this court wasn’t persuaded by the racial discrimination argument.

Photo credit: kayranft (Creative Commons)