Courts in three U.S. states – North Carolina, Wisconsin and Kansas – handed down rulings Friday reversing restrictive voting laws.

The decisions come just months before the November 8 presidential election, a hotly contested competition between Republican  billionaire businessman Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is a Democrat.

The rulings in all three states will likely result in more minorities casting votes in November.

The restrictive laws were mostly enacted after the election of President Barack Obama, a Democrat and the country’s first African American leader.

Supporters of the restrictive measures say they prohibit voter fraud.  However, numerous studies have indicated that cheating at the polls in the United States is minviscule.

A judge at the U.S. Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit said of the North Carolina case that the state legislature had designed a law that targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.” Judge Diana Motz wrote, “We cannot ignore the recent evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history.”

The appeals court decision struck down a North Carolina law requiring voters to show photo identification, ruling that it intentionally discriminated against African Americans.  The ruling also reversed limits on early voting, restrictions on same-day registration and voting, and the ability to vote outside an assigned precinct.

Republican state legislature leaders say they will appeal.

In the mid-Western state of Wisconsin, U.S. District Judge James Peterson ordered the state to revamp its photo identification law, before the upcoming presidential election, saying the law unfairly affected minorities.

Peterson’s ruling is a “huge win not only for the plaintiffs, but for democracy itself,” said a spokesman for One Wisconsin, one of the two groups that filed the lawsuit against the measure.

In Kansas, another mid-Western state, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach was blocked in his attempt to ignore thousands of votes in an upcoming primary from people who did not have proof of U.S. citizenship when they registered.  

A judge ruled that the state must count the approximately 17,000 votes.  

Kansas voters who registered to vote with a driver’s license, but did not provide proof of citizenship were told they could vote in the national election, but their votes would not count in state and local elections.
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