the court said that in crafting the law, the Republican-controlled general assembly requested and received data on voters use of various voting practices by race. It found that African American voters in North Carolina are more likely to vote early, use same-day voter registration and straight-ticket voting. They were also disproportionately less likely to have an ID, more likely to cast a provisional ballot and take advantage of pre-registration.
Then, the court, said, lawmakers restricted all of these voting options, and further narrowed the list of acceptable voter IDs.
[W]ith race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans. As amended, the bill retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess.
The state offered little justification for the law, the court said. Those who defended the law said they were doing so to prevent voter fraud. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist, the court said.
