NAACP files complaint about ID law

October 26, 2007

BY RUBY L. BAILEY

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The NAACP Detroit chapter has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the legality of a state law requiring voters to show identification at the polls beginning Nov. 6, the group announced Thursday.

The chapter also is preparing an amicus curiae or so-called friend of the court brief in connection with a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

The Justice Department complaint filed by the NAACP claims Michigan's voter identification law violates the 1964 Voting Rights Act and will decrease voting by minorities. The civil rights organization also plans to file a friend of the court brief by December in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a similar law in Indiana, said Melvin Butch Hollowell, the Detroit chapter's general counsel.

Hollowell made the announcement Thursday during a media tour of the organization's new 16,000-square foot facility at 8220 Second Ave. in Detroit.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, will chair a subcommittee hearing Tuesday on the issue.

Conyers subpoenaed John Tanner, chief of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Tanner, who is overseeing the NAACP's complaint, has been quoted as telling a Hispanic group in Los Angeles this month that while some minority voters did not have identification, it was not a problem because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."

Contact RUBY L. BAILEY at 313-222-6651 or rbailey@freepress.com

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