The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case seeking to reinstate North Carolina’s voter ID law, letting a lower court’s ruling blocking the law remain in place.
But Chief Justice John G. Roberts, in an unusual move, issued a statement saying the court’s refusal to hear the case should not be taken as an indication of how the justices felt about the actual merits. Instead, he suggested, it was unclear who the parties were in the case anymore, because of a change in the state’s leadership.
“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that ‘[t]he denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,’” the chief justice wrote.
The law required voters to show a photo…
