North Carolina high court rejects voter-identification law, electoral map

[December 17, 2022]  (Reuters) - The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday knocked down a 2018 voter-identification law it said discriminated against Black voters and ordered a state Senate map be redrawn due to Republican partisan gerrymandering.   

An election worker holds a disinfectant spray bottle as he is seen cleaning a voting booth through the window of a polling station during the 2020 presidential election in Durham, Durham County, North Carolina, U.S., November 3, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Both were 4-3 decisions along party lines, with all the court's Democratic justices voting in the majority and all Republican justices dissenting. The decisions come just before the court flips to GOP control on Jan. 1, when there will be five Republican justices and two Democrats.

The court upheld a lower court's 2021 ruling that a 2018 law requiring voters to present photo ID was unconstitutional. The majority opinion said that the lower court correctly found that the law "was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose."

Republican-led legislatures in several states have passed similar voter ID laws in recent years, arguing they are needed to prevent voter fraud.

But critics including Democrats and voting rights advocates say the laws are likely to suppress votes from African Americans, who are both more likely to vote Democratic and lack the needed identity cards.

In the gerrymandering case, the court found that the boundaries for state Senate districts unfairly favored Republicans and disfavored Black voters by diluting their vote. The electoral map was drawn by Republican legislators in 2021 and used for November's elections.

The court's majority opinion found that the map deprived voters of a "fundamental right to equal voting power."

The court ordered that lower court judges redraw the state Senate maps to meet constitutional requirements.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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