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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Courts - "Georgia Headed to Court Over Voter ID Law" [Updated]
Main Justice has this story dated Feb. 23, 2010, reported by Andrew Ramonas. Some quotes:
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires Georgia and several other states to secure permission, known as pre-clearance, from the DOJ or to obtain a favorable judgment in the D.C. U.S. District Court before changes affecting state voting procedures can go into affect.ILB Note: I rearranged the order of several paragraphs for clarity.The Georgia law at issue requires new voters to undergo a background check that uses information from two databases that contain driver’s license information and Social Security numbers to verify citizenship. * * *
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the state plans to file a lawsuit seeking clearance for a state law that has twice failed to pass muster with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. * * *
Kemp said he also would seek approval in the suit for a second law, passed last year, that would require voters to present one of several forms of identification verifying U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote.
In May 2009, the DOJ Civil Rights Division informed the state of Georgia that it could not approve the database law because it unfairly burdened a disproportionate number of minorities.
In a letter to Kemp dated Monday, DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez said the DOJ had not changed its position on the program and noted that the state has not yet to submit requested information on both programs.
“[Our] review indicates that the state has not provided any additional information or arguments related to the original voter registration verification program …to support [your] request that the objection to the original program be withdrawn,” Perez wrote. “In light of these considerations, I remain unable to conclude that the state of Georgia has carried out its burden of showing that the original [program] has neither a discriminatory purpose nor a discriminatory effect.”
[Updated at 2 PM] A new article uploaded to SSRN: "The Cost of the Vote: Poll Taxes, Voter Identification Laws, and the Price of Democracy," by Atiba R. Ellis, West Virginia University - College of Law. The abstract begins:
This article argues that photo identification laws represent a continuation of the use of economic forces as a way to block people of lower economic status from participation in the electorate. These laws are similar to other restrictions on the franchise, such as property requirements and poll taxes, because the rules required the voter to demonstrate the ability to meet an economic test – the ability to show a certain property value, the ability to pay a tax, or the ability to obtain a photo ID. The potential effect of such photo-voter identification laws is that the voters at the lowest end of the socioeconomic scale are effectively excluded from voting because they are the least able to afford the cost of voting exacted by the law.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 25, 2010 09:02 AM
Posted to Courts in general