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North Carolina Governor-elect Roy Cooper speaks to supporters at a victory rally the day after his Republican opponent, incumbent Pat McCrory, conceded in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 6, 2016

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RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolinas new Democratic governor and attorney general say theyre ending state efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to revive a GOP-backed voter ID law that was struck down by a lower court, but Republican lawmakers say they will continue pushing for the high courts review.

Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein said Tuesday theyre withdrawing from the states petition for a high court review. The Supreme Court next must decide if it will take up the case anyway.

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North Carolina's law requiring voters to show photo ID was overturned Friday by a federal appeals court. The court cited discriminatory requireme...

This morning, the Governors General Counsel and Chief Deputy Attorney General jointly sent a letter discharging outside counsel in the case on behalf of the State, said a statement announcing the action on Tuesday. Also today, the Governors Office and the N.C.Department of Justice formally withdrew the State and Governors request for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuits decision.

Last year Pat McCrory, then the states Republican governor, asked the Supreme Court to review a lower appeals court ruling. The July opinion by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals determined tougher ballot access rules adopted in 2013 were written with almost surgical precision to discourage black voters who tended to support Democrats.

In a statement on Tuesday, Cooper said, We need to make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote, not harder, and I will not continue to waste time and money appealing this unconstitutional law.

Its time for North Carolina to stop fighting for this unfair, unconstitutional law and work instead to improve equal access for voters, Cooper said.

The law, passed two years after Republicans took control of the state legislature for the first time in a century, sought to entrench GOP politicians in power by targeting voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party, the opinion by a three-judge panel of the court stated.

We can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent, the judges said.

The Supreme Court in August divided 4-4 on overturning the appeals court ruling for last falls elections. That meant North Carolinas voter identification requirement couldnt be enforced and allowed an extra seven days of early voting and same-day voter registration.

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Voters in North Carolina now need to present a photo ID in order to vote. An estimated 225,000 N.C. voters don't have that. Critics call the law ...

The states Republican legislative leaders decried Tuesdays desperate and politically-motivated effort to scuttle Supreme Court review and allow the ruling by the three-judge panel of partisan Democrats to stand. Outside attorneys hired by the General Assembly to defend the law will continue on the case, Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said in a statement.

The state elections board also could opt to press the Supreme Court request, but the panel itself may be revamped as part of the ongoing partisan warfare between entrenched Republican legislative leaders and the newly elected Democratic governor. The elections board meets Wednesday.

McCrory and Republican legislative leaders said last year the laws voter ID provision, which came into effect during the 2016 primaries, improved the integrity of elections. Appeals court judges said the state provided no evidence of the kind of in-person voter fraud the ID mandate would address. The law was amended last year to include a method for people unable to get a photo ID to still vote.

North Carolina voters last November backed Republican Donald Trump for president, re-elected fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and expanded the number of statewide GOP office-holders.

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Top NC Democrats want Supreme Court to drop voting law review - CBS News