The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Court on Monday blocked a lower court ruling [opinion, PDF] that expanded the types of documents voters could use to prove their identity for elections in North Dakota, siding with state officials over Native American tribal members.

North Dakota’s legislature passed a law [text, PDF] in 2017 that required voters to provide a valid form of identification to the proper election official before receiving a ballot.

The statute requires a voter to provide identification that includes their current residential street address. This is controversial because residential street addresses may not always be assigned on American Indian reservations. The district court “required instead that the Secretary must deem a voter qualified if the voter presents identification that includes a voter’s current mailing address, such as a post office box, that may be located in a different voting precinct from the voter’s residence.” The district court’s injunction to include more identification was struck down by the Eighth Circuit.

In overruling the District Court the Eighth Circuit identified the proximity of the election as a vital factor for not upholding the injunction.

We previously denied the Secretary’s request for a stay in this very case because there was an election only a week away. And absentee voting for the November election begins in less than a week. To grant a stay now fails to properly weigh the unique “considerations specific to election cases” that apply when a party seeks to upset the status quo “just weeks before an election.”