Court strikes down North Carolina voter ID law as racially biased

A panel of state judges in North Carolina struck down a voter ID law Friday, saying the law made it more difficult for Black voters to cast ballots.

The judges said in their 211-page ruling that while the motivations behind the GOP-supported law were fueled largely by partisan considerations and not racial animus, the fact that they targeted Black voters still made the law discriminatory.

“In reaching this conclusion, we do not find that any member of the General Assembly who voted in favor of [the law] harbors any racial animus or hatred towards African American voters, but rather ... that the Republican majority ‘target[ed] voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party. Even if done for partisan ends, that constitute[s] racial discrimination,’” the judges ruled.