RALEIGH, N.C. _ North Carolina voters will not have to show a photo ID in the next elections in the state after a ruling in federal court was announced Thursday.
A federal judge in North Carolina said she would stop the voter ID law temporarily as the lawsuit against the state continues. She said she will make her official ruling next week, but wanted to give advance notice of her decision.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Josh Stein, who must now decide how the state will react to the judge's decision, said his office will wait to see the actual court filing next week before making any decisions on how to proceed.
The North Carolina NAACP and others sued the state in December 2018 over the voter ID requirement. In the 2018 elections, North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID for future elections. Republican lawmakers wanted to put it into the state constitution after a previous voter ID law, which they passed in 2013, was struck down as unconstitutional.
However, the new amendment didn't contain any actual details of what a voter ID law would entail, so the legislature came back to Raleigh after the election to write those details.
The North Carolina NAACP sued over that new law a day after lawmakers passed it. And on Friday the group's president, the Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, called the judge's announcement a "major victory" against "voter suppression using voter identification to deter minority voting."
"We will continue to ensure that communities of color have a full opportunity to elect representatives who will protect their interests in the state legislature," Spearman said in a press release.
The court announced Thursday: "Based on the State Board's representation at the Preliminary Injunction hearing held December 3, 2019 that the Board plans a very large statewide mailing on December 31, 2019 to educate the voters on the Photo ID provisions of S.B 824, the Court hereby informs the parties that the Court will file an Order granting Plaintiffs' request for injunction related to the Voter Photo ID and Ballot Challenge provisions of the Act the week of December 30, 2019."
