North Carolina's emergency application to the Supreme Court to reinstate a controversial set of voting restrictions before November's election has been denied by a deadlocked, 4-4 court. What a difference a dead Scalia makes. In a one-line order that did not include any reasoning, the high court declined the state’s petition, which sought to put on hold a July ruling that found the voting law discriminated against African-Americans and compared it to a relic of the Jim Crow era. The state failed to convince at least five justices that three provisions of the contested law ― its voter ID requirement, cutbacks to early voting and elimination of pre-registration for certain under-18 voters ― were worth putting back on the books.