New voter ID law immediately challenged in N Carolina court

Daily Legal News

The North Carolina law detailing a new voter photo identification requirement got challenged in court Wednesday mere moments after the Republican-led General Assembly completed the override of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of the measure.

Six voters filed the lawsuit in Wake County court less than 15 minutes after the state House finished the override in a mostly party-line 72-40 vote. The Senate already voted to override Tuesday.

The photo ID law implements a constitutional amendment approved in a referendum last month that mandates photo identification to vote in person, with exceptions allowed. Still, the plaintiffs contend the law violates the state constitution and should be blocked, saying it retains requirements within a 2013 photo ID law that federal judges struck down.

The voters — five black residents and one described as biracial — say the restrictions will harm African-American and American Indian residents disproportionately and unduly burden the right to vote. It also creates a financial cost to voting in the form of lost work times and the need to secure transportation to obtain an ID, the lawsuit said.

"The General Assembly has simply reproduced the court-identified racially discriminatory intent it manifested a mere five years ago when it enacted a very similar voter ID requirement," according to the plaintiffs' lawyers. Some of the attorneys work for an organization that helped challenge the 2013 law. That litigation took nearly four years to resolve.

Before and after the lawsuit was filed Wednesday, Republican lawmakers said the implementing legislation carries out what 55 percent of voters who supported the referendum in November wanted. GOP legislators rejected Cooper's veto message that the bill was a "sinister and cynical" attempt to suppress the voting rights of minorities, the poor and the elderly. Rather, they said, it was designed to discourage voter fraud and increase the public's confidence in elections.

Related listings

  • Porter County to start new court for mentally ill offenders

    Porter County to start new court for mentally ill offenders

    Daily Legal News 12/07/2018

    A northwestern Indiana county is preparing to become just the fourth in the state to operate a court specifically designed to treat the needs of nonviolent mentally ill offenders.Porter Superior Court Judge David Chidester says the county's Restorati...

  • European court orders Turkey to free ex-Kurdish party leader

    European court orders Turkey to free ex-Kurdish party leader

    Daily Legal News 11/20/2018

    The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday called on Turkey to release the former head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition from detention. Turkey's president responded by claiming his country was not bound by the court's rulings.In its ruling on Tu...

  • Lawyer for WikiLeaks’ Assange says he would fight charges

    Lawyer for WikiLeaks’ Assange says he would fight charges

    Daily Legal News 11/17/2018

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not willingly travel to the United States to face charges filed under seal against him, one of his lawyers said, foreshadowing a possible fight over extradition for a central figure in the U.S. special counsel&rs...

Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.