Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican who is seeking re-election this fall, asserted that North Carolina had “been denied basic voting rights already granted to more than 30 states.” He noted that four justices had supported the state’s position and that “four liberal justices blocked North Carolina protections afforded by our sensible voter laws.”

The law’s critics welcomed the order.

“This decision opens the door for fair and full access to the democratic process for all voters,” said Allison Riggs, a lawyer for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “Hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians will now be able to vote without barriers. The voting booth is the one place where everyone is equal and where we all have the same say.”

Civil rights groups joined with the Obama administration in filing suit against the law, arguing that, several parts of the law violated the Constitution and what remained of the Voting Rights Act. A trial judge rejected those claims in April, but in July a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., disagreed.

The appeals court ruling struck down five parts of the law: its voter ID requirements, a rollback of early voting to 10 days from 17, an elimination of same-day registration and of preregistration of some teenagers, and its ban on counting votes cast in the wrong precinct.

The court found that all five restrictions “disproportionately affected African Americans.” The law’s voter identification provision, for instance, “retained only those types of photo ID disproportionately held by whites and excluded those disproportionately held by African Americans.”