Under judicial review, voter ID laws crumble

“A citizen has a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.” In Ohio, that right to participate equally has been abridged…” So was the opinion of federal court Judge Peter Economus who suspended the Ohio Revised Code ‘ 3509.03 and the Ohio Secretary of State’s further interpretation of that statute with regard to in-person early voting.

In July, President Obama’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military, violates the Constitution’s guarantee that all voters enjoy equal access to the franchise. The campaign’s lawsuit called for the right of all voters to cast an early ballot be restored.

In his ruling Judge Economus noted that “In 2005, Ohio expanded participation in absentee balloting and in-person early voting to include all registered Ohio voters. Now, “in-person early voting” has been redefined by the Ohio legislature to limit Plaintiffs’ access to the polls… Following Supreme Court precedent, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have stated a constitutional claim that is likely to succeed on the merits. As a result—and as explained below—this Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction. Source

 

 

In another instance of a voter ID law collapsing under legal challenge,  a Federal court struck down the Texas voter ID statute that was signed into law in 2011 by Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Calling it “discriminatory,” on August 30^th, a three-judge panel unanimously agreed with the argument made by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - that Texas failed to show the law will not have "the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race." The judges said the new law would require tens of thousands of registered Texas voters who are poor and do not drive cars to travel to a state motor vehicle office to obtain the required state photo ID card. And one-third of Texas counties do not have a Department of Public Safety (DPS) office, they noted. “Even the most committed citizen, we think, would agree that a 200- to 250-mile round trip — especially for would-be voters having no driver’s license — constitutes a substantial burden on the right to vote,” said Judge David Tatel in unanimous opinion. The ruling is the first during the Obama administration by a federal court holding that a strict voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act. Source

Thus far, state and federal courts have struck down voter ID and other laws and policies that were passed or imposed by GOP controlled state legislatures, governors and Secretaries of State in Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa and Ohio. Maine state voters overturned a GOP sponsored law that ended election day voter registration. The Justice Department blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law. The GOP dominated Michigan state legislature passed a restrictive voter ID bill but, the bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Only in the state of Pennsylvania has a court upheld a voter ID law. The Pennsylvania law is currently being reviewed on appeal by that state’s Supreme Court. Since the lower court ruling upholding the law it has been revealed that many senior citizens who are inductees of the Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame do not have the proper ID in order to vote in the Nov. 6 Presidential election  CNBC’s “Mad Money” host, Jim Cramer, tweeted that his elderly father would not be able to vote under the new law. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation quickly sent the elder Cramer a free voter ID. But for the rest of the nearly one million Keystone State voters who have been made ineligible to vote, Washington Post reporter Ann Gerhart chronicled the laborious struggle of what one Philadelphia resident (a 54 year old African American woman who has been a registered voter in Pennsylvania since she was 19 years old) endured in order acquire the newly required photo ID. Watch Ann Gerhart on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews.

by Brent Scott, Executive Director of Vote by Mail America