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Friday, July 14, 2006

Law - Critics of voter IDs get boost

"Georgia judge rules law similar to Ohio's is discriminatory, unconstitutional" is the headline to a story today in the Akron Ohio Beacon Journal. Some quotes:

COLUMBUS - The efforts of Ohio Democrats to prevent a voter identification requirement at the polls has received a boost from a U.S. District Court judge in Georgia who ruled a similar law in that state is discriminatory and illegal.

Plaintiffs in Georgia echoed what Ohio voting advocacy groups have been saying here -- that the ID requirement is meant to discriminate by preventing the poor from voting.

And within a month, Democrats will know if they too have a case, said Jennifer Brunner, Democratic nominee for secretary of state.

Georgia's Wednesday ruling -- issued after a five-hour hearing by U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy -- found that Georgia's voter photo ID requirement is unconstitutional because it violates guarantees of the First and 14th amendments.

Ohio's law is somewhat different because it includes a broader array of identification, such as pay stubs and utility bills.

Both laws were driven by Republicans and opposed by their Democratic counterparts. * * *

Even without a contrary court decision in Ohio, the voter ID issue is likely to head to the Supreme Court, Brunner said. There are 22 other states with voter ID laws and many could have court battles, she said.

Brunner noted that a court in Indiana already ruled in favor of a Republican-driven voter ID law in April. Indiana and Georgia's opposing district court rulings could end up in the nation's highest court, she said.

Here is an ILB entry from April 15, including a link to the 127-page opinion by federal (SD Ind.) Judge Sarah Evans Barker in Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita. The case is now on appeal in the 7th Circuit. Here is a link to a site (Election Law @ Moritz) with the district court pleadings and some of the appeals documents (at the end of the list). Here is a link to the briefs filed with the 7th Circuit. (At least one of the files is damaged and unreadable -- #5, the Amicus Brief of the League of Women Voters).

Ed Feigenbaum of Indiana Daily Insight provided a link this morning to an upcoming 66-page University of Michigan Law Review article on voter identification cases - access it here.

See a story on Wednesday's Georgia voter ID rulings here, from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 14, 2006 08:00 AM
Posted to General Law Related