Kaine: North Carolina ID ruling could bring another 100K to polls

Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) on Wednesday praised a court ruling that struck down parts of North Carolina’s voter identification law, saying it will likely bring an additional 100,000 people to the polls in the battleground state.

{mosads}”What a great decision. Participation is the name of the game,” Kaine, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, said at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. “That court laid it on them, folks.”

Last week, the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals struck down parts of a law that required voters to show identification in order to vote.

Critics of voter ID laws argue that they disproportionately affect minority and low-income voters.

“The court found there was an intent to discriminate against African-Americans and keep African-Americans and minorities from voting,” Kaine said.

“And so when folks try to divide us, when folks try to prefer one group and kick the other to the curb, we got to have a vigorous court system,” he added.

The ruling could have a major impact in the battleground state of North Carolina, where both Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump have been campaigning recently.

In addition to the ID requirement, the law reduced the number of early voting days in the state and ended same-day voter registration. The court said the voting changes were enacted with discriminatory intent.

President Obama won North Carolina by a razor-thin margin in 2008, but Mitt Romney (R) narrowly carried the state in 2012.

The state also has a growing African-American population, a group that flocked to Clinton in the Democratic primaries. In a late June survey, Trump only got 1 percent of support from black voters nationally.

“The effect of that ruling could mean an additional 100,000 people who were supposed to be able to participate, who were shunned to the side, now get to come back in and participate … as is their right to do.”