On Friday, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that North Carolina violated the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment when it passed several voting restrictions in 2013.
For decades, most voting changes in North Carolina had to be submitted to the Justice Department before going into effect under a Voting Rights Act-required process called "preclearance."
In 2013, however, the Supreme Court effectively ended that process in a case called Shelby County v. Holder by striking down the formula used to decide which changes were subject to preclearance.