Advance and be Recognized
Our friends at Red State Diaries took issue with Beth Chapman's support for requiring photo identification from voters. Alabamian wrote here that federal law prohibits such a requirement.
I guess he was surprised last week. As reported by the Associated Press, on Friday, 25 August, The US Department of Justice granted preclearance of Georgia's new photo identification law.
Of course, the Georgia law is sure to land in court. And who knows what the judges will rule.
Photo identification is currently in use in a number of states, despite Alabamian's claim on his blog, including Louisiana. However, as Dan Tokaji and other election law specialists point out in this letter, the facts in the Georgia scenario are such that court may well rule the law violates the Voting Rights Act.
posted by watchman @ 8:29 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you for the visit, but I must disagree with your critique of my post. I wrote that federal law barred the Legislature from “mak[ing] photo voter identification mandatory.” When I wrote the post, that indeed appeared to be the case, and the sources provided in your post bear that out.
The professors’ letter notes that the Justice Department just last year denied pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act to a Louisiana law that required photo ID for first-time voters because the department feared the law would harm minorities disproportionately. And five states have laws asking for photo ID at the polling place, according to The Associated Press, but those laws all contain exceptions such as allowing people to vote after signing an affidavit or presenting another form of ID.
My post did not address photo voter ID laws that contain such exceptions; it only addressed laws requiring “mandatory” photo voter ID. The Mobile Register report on which the post was based suggested that Chapman was calling for a law of the latter type. The newspaper also noted that such a law “would require a change in federal law.”
The Justice Department’s ruling on the Georgia law came more than two weeks after the post to which you linked. The evidence available at the time of the post made it reasonable to believe that mandatory photo voter ID did not meet with federal approval -– and as you observe, the courts still might overturn the Justice Department’s decision about the Georgia law. Surely you don’t blame me for failing to predict the future.
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