North State Journal: “Oral arguments over the constitutionality of North Carolina’s photo voter identification law will be held next month, the state Supreme Court has decided in another ruling determined along partisan lines.
In a 4-3 decision, the justices who are registered as Democrats agreed with attorneys for minority voters who had asked the state’s highest court in July to move the case along more quickly.
These voters are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in December 2018 moments after the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a photo ID law. That law has never been administered.
A panel of judges held a trial, and in September 2021 a majority struck down the law, saying it intentionally discriminated against Black voters. Earlier this year, in a similar 4-3 decision, the justices agreed to hear the case, instead of waiting for the intermediate-level Court of Appeals to deliberate first.
The plaintiffs wrote in July that an expedited argument date as soon as September would help state officials and voters “prepare for future elections without the risk of voter confusion and disenfranchisement.””