AND STAY DOWN: U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Revive North Carolina Voter-ID Law.

Turning away the appeal pressed by state Republican leaders, the justices left intact a ruling that said the provisions were racially discriminatory in violation of federal voting-rights law. In addition to requiring people to show a photo ID, the North Carolina law reduced the number of early voting days and eliminated same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting.

The rebuff was a surprise because four conservative justices previously tried to revive the measure before the 2016 election. That effort failed because it was an emergency request that required five votes, but the court could have accepted the latest appeal with only four votes.

In a statement that accompanied the court’s order Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to uncertainty over who was authorized to file an appeal on behalf of the state. He said the court had received a “blizzard of filings” on that issue.

Roberts, however, also stressed that the justices weren’t deciding that the lower court was right to strike down the North Carolina requirements. The rejection of an appeal “imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,” he wrote, quoting from a 1923 Supreme Court opinion.

I’d like to get Glenn to weigh in on this, but the story reads like the N.C. law might be kosher, but that the appeal was a mess.