Thread: Justice Department Rejects South Carolina Voter ID Law

Justice Department Rejects South Carolina Voter ID Law

Published December 23, 2011
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The U.S. Department of Justice rejected South Carolina's voter ID law on Friday, saying the new policy doesn't do enough to ensure that minority voters aren't discriminated against.

"Until South Carolina succeeds in substantially addressing the racial disparities described above, however, the state cannot meet its burden of proving that, when compared to the benchmark standard, the voter identification requirements proposed ... will not have a retrogressive effect," Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote Friday in a letter to the office of South Carolina's attorney general.

Perez said that non-whites comprise about one-third of South Carolina's registered voters and also are one-third of the registered voters who don't have the right ID necessary to vote. Perez says tens of thousands of South Carolina minorities may be unable to cast ballots.

In response, South Carolina could now sue over the rejection, pass a new law or submit more data to the Justice Department. Spokesmen for Gov. Nikki Haley and Attorney General Alan Wilson did not immediately respond to email messages sent Friday, which was a state holiday.

South Carolina's new voter ID law requires people casting ballots to show poll workers a state-issued driver's license or ID card; a U.S. military ID or a U.S. passport.

The Justice Department must approve changes to South Carolina's election laws under the federal Voting Rights Act because of the state's past failure to protect the voting rights of blacks. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union also are challenging it.



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...#ixzz1hOwfkGiC

SC voter ID law rejected by Justice Department

miamiherald.com
By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press
Posted on Friday, 12.23.11

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The Justice Department on Friday rejected South Carolina's law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, saying it makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. It was the first voter ID law to be refused by the federal agency in nearly 20 years.

The Obama administration said South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting. Tens of thousands of minorities in South Carolina might not be able to cast ballots under South Carolina's law because they don't have the right photo ID, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said.

South Carolina's law was passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Nikki Haley. The state's attorney general vowed to fight the federal agency in court. "Nothing in this act stops people from voting," said Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is also a Republican.

South Carolina's new voter ID law requires voters to show poll workers a state-issued driver's license or several other alternative forms of photo identification.

"The U.S. Department of Justice today blocked implementation of a new law that would require South Carolina voters to present a photo ID in order to vote," the state Election Commission said in a statement late Friday. "Therefore, ID requirements for voting will not change at this time.

'South Carolina is among five states that passed laws this year requiring some form of ID at the polls, while such laws were already on the books in Indiana and Georgia, whose law received approval from President George W. Bush's Justice Department. Indiana's law, passed in 2005, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008.

Those new laws also allow voters without the required photo ID to cast provisional ballots, but the voters must return to a specific location with that ID within a certain time limit for their ballots to count.

Most of the laws have been promoted and approved by Republicans, who argue they are needed to avert voter fraud. Democrats say the measures are actually aimed at reducing minority votes for their candidates.

The Justice Department must approve changes to South Carolina's election laws under the federal Voting Rights Act because of the state's past failure to protect the voting rights of blacks. It is one of nine states that require the agency's approval.

The last time the Justice Department rejected a voter ID law was in 1994 when Louisiana passed a measure requiring a picture ID. After changes were made, it was approved by the agency.

Justice officials are reviewing Texas' new law. Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin also passed laws this year, but they are not under the agency's review.

South Carolina's law also required the state to determine how many voters lack state-issued IDs so that the Election Commission can work to make sure they know of law changes. The Department of Motor Vehicles will issue free state photo identification cards to those voters.

"Minority registered voters were nearly 20 percent more likely to lack DMV-issued ID than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disenfranchised," Perez wrote, noting that the numbers could be even higher since the data submitted by the state doesn't include inactive voters.

The number of active and inactive voters that should be used to determine how many people would be affected by the law has been in dispute. Department of Motor Vehicles executive director Kevin Shwedo said the state Election Commission knew it was using inaccurate data when it released reports showing nearly 240,000 active and inactive voters lacked driver's licenses or ID cards.

Shwedo sent the state's attorney general an analysis showing that 207,000 of those voters live in other states, allowed their ID cards to expire, probably have licenses with names that didn't match voter records or were dead. He said the commission created "artificially high numbers to excite the masses.

"Earlier in the week, commission officials said the agency will eliminate nearly 60,000 deceased people and individuals whose names didn't match DMV records.

Haley said the decision was more proof President Barack Obama is fighting conservative ideas like voter ID laws or immigration reform.

"The president and his bullish administration are fighting us every step of the way. It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights," Haley said in a statement.

South Carolina ACLU executive director Victoria Middleton applauded the Justice Department's decision, saying the "misguided" law represented "a dramatic setback to voting rights in our state and we are pleased to see it stopped in its tracks.

"The decision also was welcomed by civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who planned to talk about how voter ID laws are an effort by conservatives to keep blacks from voting in his hometown of Greenville, S.C., next week. He said the laws are like modern day poll taxes, targeting elderly people that can't afford to get IDs and students.

"We're fighting wars for democracy overseas and we're fighting democracy at home," Jackson said. "What a contradiction."

Associated Press writers Jim Davenport and Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report. Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/2...#storylink=cpy

Justice Dept. Cites Race in Halting Law Over Voter ID

By
CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: December 23, 2011

　
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday blocked a new South Carolina law that would require voters to present photo identification, saying the law would disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible minority voters.

The move was the first time since 1994 that the department has exercised its powers under the Voting Rights Act to block a voter identification law. It followed a speech this month by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that signaled an aggressive stance in reviewing a wave of new state voting restrictions, largely enacted by Republicans in the name of fighting fraud.

In a letter to the South Carolina government, Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney for civil rights, said that allowing the new requirement to go into effect would have "significant racial disparities."

He cited data supplied by the state as showing that there were "81,938 minority citizens who are already registered to vote and who lack" such identification, and that these voters are nearly 20 percent more likely be "disenfranchised" by the change than white voters.

South Carolina now faces the choice of dropping the proposed change or asking a federal court in the District of Columbia to approve the law.

Richard L. Hasen, an election law specialist at the University of California, Irvine, predicted on his Election Law Blog that the state would go to court, which could set up a "momentous" decision in the Supreme Court on whether a part of the Voting Rights Act that prevents states like South Carolina from changing their voting rules without federal permission is unconstitutional.

Gov. Nikki Haley denounced the decision, accusing the Obama administration of "bullying" the state.
"It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th Amendment rights," she said in a statement.

Under the Voting Rights Act, an election rule or practice that disproportionately affects minority voters is illegal — even if there is no sign of discriminatory intent. South Carolina is one of several states that, because of a history of discriminatory practices, must prove that a measure would not disproportionately discourage minority voting.

Such states must receive "pre-clearance" from the Justice Department or a federal court before any proposed change to elections rules can take place. South Carolina provided data comparing its registered voters to those who had an identification card issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles, including a demographic breakdown of the 240,000 registered voters who it said did not have such identification.

Complicating matters, this week the Department of Motor Vehicles called into question the data the state had provided. It said that although the report said 240,000 registered voters lacked a state-issued identification card, the real figure was probably closer to 80,000 because many had died or moved away.

In its letter, the Justice Department said that the new data — which contained no demographic breakdown — did not change its decision because the burden is on the state to prove that its change to election rules would not suppress minority voting. But it also noted that the state could ask the department to reconsider its decision on the basis of new information, once it re-examines the demographics.

The department also suggested that the voter registration data supplied by South Carolina might instead be too low because the state did not include "several categories of existing registered voters listed as inactive voters," apparently a status conferred on people who failed to participate in several recent elections.

The South Carolina law also allowed several other forms of photographic identification to be used, such as military ID cards or passports, but the state supplied no data about how many registered voters who lack a driver’s license might have one of those.

Restrictions on voting and vote fraud have been an increasingly contentious topic of partisan dispute. Supporters — mostly Republicans — have portrayed voting fraud as rampant, and say restrictions are necessary to prevent the dilution of ballots cast by legitimate voters. Critics — mostly Democrats — contend that the restrictions are a veiled effort to suppress participation by legitimate voters who tend to favor their party’s candidates.

Documented cases of the sort of fraud that photo identification laws seek to limit — ineligible people showing up at the polls and casting ballots in person — have been few and isolated, although there is greater evidence that absentee ballot fraud has been used to attempt to alter the results of an election, including a 1997 mayoral election in Miami.

South Carolina’s current rules, enacted in 1988, allow people to vote by presenting a voter registration card and signing a document. The Justice Department letter said that while the state had justified adding the requirement to present photographic identification as a way to deter fraud, it did not submit "any evidence or instance" of "in-person voter impersonation" or some other kind of fraud that could be deterred by the new requirement.

The jostling ahead of the 2012 election cycle comes against the backdrop of the 2008 election, when a huge turnout of young and minority voters helped propel Mr. Obama to victory. In 2010, voting by such groups dropped as enthusiasm among more conservative factions surged, and Republicans won sweeping victories — including winning or expanding control of many state legislatures and governorships.
This year, more than a dozen states have enacted new voting restrictions, including eight — Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — that passed variations of a rule requiring photo identification.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/us...-carolina.html

Tom Perez is running roughshod over states to make sure the illegals vote in the FEDERAL elections, which is illegal. What is the Senate judiciary commitee doing about? - nothing. It is no surprise that the American citizens have no faith in their elected representatives to protect their rights and property instead of putting the needs of a political party's need for power. Everything inside the beltway stinks of rot and corruption. JMO