In a major victory for voting rights, the Fourth Circuit today issued an order forbidding the State of North Carolina from implementing certain provisions in a law impeding voters rights in that state.

Perkins Coie LLP represented several North Carolina voters in the litigation. Marc Elias, a partner with Perkins Coie involved in the efforts to stop the law from implementation, stated the proposed law “has been widely recognized as one of the most audacious of the recent efforts to suppress voter registration and turnout across the country.”

The Fourth Circuit found that the provisions repealing North Carolina’s same day registration program, through which voters could register to vote and cast a ballot on the same day during the early voting period, and out-of-precinct voting, which ensured that voters who voted in the wrong precinct in the county in which they were registered to vote would have their ballots counted, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.