In North Carolina, judges are elected. In the last election in North Carolina, the North Carolina Supreme Court flipped from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority. The consequences of that election are already becoming apparent.
The Epoch Times reported the following on Saturday:
The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday handed a victory to the state’s Republican legislators by siding with a petition that asked the high court to rehear cases involving election maps and voter identification laws.
In a vote along partisan lines, the state’s Supreme Court voted 5–2 to rehear the two cases in March—ones that North Carolina’s Republican legislature had previously lost.
Two Republicans running for seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court in the November midterm election beat their Democrat opponents, flipping the composition of the court red for the first time since 2016.
The partisan switch of the court revived Republican hopes to revisit the cases.
In one of the cases, Holmes v. Moore, the state Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 16, 2022, to strike down a law requiring photo voter identification. The justification for that decision was supposed discrimination against minorities.
Justice Trey Allen wrote in an order Friday that the criteria for adjudicating the request by GOP legislative leaders for the case to be reheard have been met.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michael Morgan questioned whether the decision to rehear the case would call into question the court’s impartiality.
Does Justice Morgan believe the court was being impartial when it threw out the legal redistricting by the mostly Republican legislature and a Constitutional Amendment voted for by the majority of North Carolina voters?
The article concludes:
A separate filing by Republican lawmakers argued that the correct legal standard was not applied in a decision that the state Supreme Court upheld on voter ID.
“Holmes was wrongly decided based on a predetermined outcome. We now have a chance to right this wrong and deliver on voter ID, which the voters of this state overwhelmingly support,” said Sam Hayes, general counsel for the House speaker, according to Spectrum News 1.
For more than a decade, North Carolina Republicans have been seeking to pass a law that would require voters to present photo identification. The state legislature passed voter ID laws in 2013, but they were struck down by a federal court. A similar law adopted in 2018 was struck down by the state Supreme Court in December.
The citizens voted. Their voices need to be heard.