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The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday said that Texas’s controversial voter ID law can remain in place for this year’s election, potentially threatening voting rights of hundreds of thousands of Texans.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos had struck down the law on Oct. 9, finding that it “has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, […] was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose,” and “constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.” Days later, a federal appeals court blocked that decision, keeping the voter ID restrictions in place.

The Supreme Court’s early morning decision rejects an emergency appeal brought forth by voting rights advocates to reinstate the district court’s injunction.

Justice Ginsburg, who was joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan in dissenting, wrote: “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

Lyle Denniston writes at Scotusblog that the decision is “a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and a number of civil rights groups.” He adds: “This apparently was the first time since 1982 that the Court has allowed a law restricting voters’ rights to be enforced after a federal court had ruled it to be unconstitutional.”