Georgia Voter ID Law Challenged Again

The Georgia Democratic Party has asked the courts for a temporary restraining order against the state's highly partisan voter ID law. The action is intended to stop the state from requiring photo identification of voters in the primary election slated for July 15.

Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican, has spoken out against the move describing it as a legal maneuver that is intended to disrupt voting. The move is an attempt to immediately stop action on the law because advance voting will begin Monday and a photo ID will be required.

Nationwide, voter ID laws have been partisan since they first began appearing. Democrats maintain that the laws are used to eliminate low-income and elderly voters who tend to lean toward Democratic candidates. Republicans, in turn, argue that requiring photo identification prevents voter fraud.

More than a month ago the Georgia Democratic Party filed a new lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality. Now, before the suit has had its first hearing or any depositions taken, they are asking the court to step in because the state's primary election is little more than a week off. Emmet Bondurant, one of the attorneys representing the Democratic Party in the suit, feels that voters who are refused a ballot because they do not have the required identification would suffer "irreparable harm."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quotes Bondurant as saying, "The idea is to get an injunction that will prevent the state from enforcing the voter ID act.

The article quotes Handel as saying, "I am truly dismayed by this latest legal maneuver on the part of those opposed to Georgia's common-sense photo ID law. Given the timing of the Democratic Party's motion, this is clearly nothing more than an attempt to create confusion and disrupt the July 15 primary and the November general election. The Democratic Party seems to be more concerned with disrupting the elections process than with the security of the process."

The Georgia law has survived previous court challenges; one filed in Fulton County Superior Court and another decided last year in U.S. District Court. Both cases were brought by individuals filing on behalf of the Democratic Party and in both cases judges said the people bringing the cases were not eligible to bring them.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has said political parties could bring such lawsuits. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Indiana's voter ID law the justices said, in that decision, that political parties have standing to challenge those state laws.

The Georgia Democratic Party brought their current lawsuit several weeks after that Supreme Court decision.

Comments

[Boboday555]

These republicans are shameless!
If this dreadful law passes, can we all finally stop pretending that 'those' states, you know the ones I mean, aren't racist?

[DonKrieger]

Here is a link to the recent Supreme Court opinion on Indiana's Voter ID Law:
http://publicservice.evendon.net/SC07-21OpinionM.htm

- These are not PDF files.
- Each page has it's own URL so each can be referenced.
- Loading is very fast.

Here are links to the Arguments and Briefs:

http://publicservice.evendon.net/SC07-21ArgsM.htm
http://publicservice.evendon.net/SC07-21MeritsM.htm
http://publicservice.evendon.net/SC07-21AmicusPetrM.htm
http://publicservice.evendon.net/SC07-21AmicusRespM.htm

Don

[karela]

How thoughtful of the republicans to worry about election fraud. As it turns out, people pretending to be someone else in order to vote haven't in actuality been much of a problem. There are very few cases of this happening. On the other hand, at every election there are cases of republican operatives working to keep democrats who are poor from voting. In Texas thousands of phone calls were made telling people that they might be prosecuted and sent to jail if they tried to vote because supposedly their voter registration was illegal--a lie. In many places the polling location is changed at the last minute and no signs are posted at the old location. People are told that they have to vote at a different location and since they are too poor to own a car, they have to take a bus if they can afford to. When they arrive at the new location, it turns out to be a lie. Often this is carried on until the polls close. This happens every election and yet, miraculously, the government never arrests or convicts anyone. This law is pretty obviously an effort to do the same old junk and now to make it legal. Let's get some democrats in office who believe in the rule of law and kick these crooked bums out!

[kellygrrrl]

you said it!!!!

I think we all need to set up programs to work on helping to get these poor and/or elderly voters to their polling place
and stand right next to them when someone comes along to intimidate