...also in regard to Virginia vs North Carolina, don't forget the Republicans were successful in implementing their voter suppression law in North Carolina for 2016.
To be fair, most of the noteworthy restrictions from the 2013 bill were struck down. The biggest factor then became the early voting changes, which Republicans abused to cut locations/hours in many areas with large African American populations. That was only for the first week, though. The rest of early voting saw relatively good plans. Other than that, I suppose the abolishment of straight ticket voting might have hurt some downballot offices. I do often wonder what turnout would have been like had that law not been mostly gutted by the court system.
You also have to remember in 2016 a lot of the eastern NC areas(where there is a high black population) were hit hard by Hurricane Matthew a few weeks before the elections.
