A federal judge has blocked North Carolina from implementing a more restrictive verification for voters who register and cast ballots on the same day, agreeing with the state Democratic Party that doing so would cause eligible votes to be thrown out. The state legislature's Republican majority passed a raft of new voting restrictions last year and overrode Democratic Governor Roy Cooper's veto, including eliminating a post-election grace period for counting absentee ballots and stripping the governor of the authority to appoint members to the state elections board. The legislation was among new Republican-backed restrictions across the country following the 2020 presidential election, when then-President Donald Trump falsely attributed his loss to fraud.