Voting Rights v New ID Requirements in GA

[wildeyed]

The following is cut and paste from a list I subscribe to. :scared: I thought the bottom bit was most informative, but it is all interesting.


Some very disturbing news coming out of the US Dept. of Justice that does not bode well for Voting rights...

Friends,

The decision of the Bush Justice Dept to approve Georgia's new voter ID requirements sends a chilling message to voting rights activists: take nothing for granted regarding renewal of the federal Voting Rights Act -- and don't underestimate the capacity of state forces to disenfranchise voters. The League of Women Voters said Georgia's new law "will make Georgia the toughest place in the country for properly registered citizens . . . to cast a ballot in person."
<http://www.lwvga.org/documents/May2005factsheet.pdf>

Here's background from our allies at Democracy South and the ACLU....


From: Winnett Hagens
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 12:13 PM
Subject: Democracy South Voting Rights Alert US Dept of Justice Preclears New Georgia Voter Photo ID Law

All: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a headlong retreat from full enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, took a long step backwards last Friday (Aug. 26, 2005) when the DOJ precleared HB 244, Georgia's new draconian photo ID requirement for voters. In 1994, a similar photo ID requirement in Louisiana was denied preclearence on the grounds that it would disproportionately affect minority voters who did not have a driver's license <http://www.votingrights.org/resources/?resourceID=32>.

This injudicious ruling will unquestionably hinder access to the ballot for untold numbers of Latino, African-American and senior voters in Georgia. It is far from coincidental that all of these constituencies vote predominantly Democratic. Indeed, Republicans were the driving force behind enactment of these voting obstructions. Pure and simple, this is about a naked partisan effort to cook the electorate to their advantage by making voting easier for their voters and more difficult for their opponents.

Broken law enforcement like this will send the message to jurisdictions in sixteen other states covered under Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act that onerous and excessive photo ID requirements for voting will not be opposed at the DOJ. This is a very deliberate decision to all but abandon Voting Rights Act protections for minorities when it comes to new access to voting obstructions. It is a blatant assault on the voting rights of minority voters that is every bit as injurious to minority voting as felon disenfranchisement. When it comes to the end result, is there a practical difference between suppressing the vote of minorities with a poll tax or obstructing minority access to the polls with insuperable photo ID requirements? We think not.

What's going on here is that partisans who cannot win the votes of minorities and seniors with policies that answer their needs are erecting barriers to their participation in elections. This deliberate attack on the voting rights of minorities and seniors cries out for exposure. Latino, African-American and senior voters, the the principal victims of this intentional law enforcement failure, should be reminded again and again of exactly who is behind this assault on their voting rights. The ACLU and others will resist this in the courts. We should be helping with heat from the streets.

Winnett Hagens
Executive Director, Democracy South
Information, Technology and Experience to Expand the Electorate
304 B 49th Street
Virginia Beach, VA 23451
www.democracysouth.org/www.democracymaps.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Levitas
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 8:32 PM
Subject: ACLU Condemns U.S. DOJ Decision To Preclear Georgia Photo ID Requirement


ACLU Condemns U.S. <http://www.votingrights.org/news/?newsitem=17>
Justice Department Decision to Approve Georgia Photo ID Law

August 26, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: <mailto:[e-mail]> [e-mail]

Decision Will Discriminate Against Minority Voters and is Called "Highly Partisan"

ATLANTA - The American Civil Liberties Union sharply criticized today's decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to approve a new Georgia law that voting rights advocates say will discriminate against minority voters. The measure, H.B. 244, which was passed on March 31 and signed by Governor Sonny Perdue in April, reduces the various forms of identification that voters can use from 17 to six, and makes state-issued photo identification absolutely required in order to vote.

"This decision is extremely disturbing because H.B. 244, which will undoubtedly make minority voters worse off, is exactly the kind of law that the Voting Rights Act was designed to block," said Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project in Atlanta. "It is quite alarming to see such obvious political partisanship impact what should be a fair and impartial decision-making process at the Department of Justice. Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that the Republican-controlled Department of Justice would defer to a Republican-backed measure that will certainly suppress minority voters, the majority of whom vote Democrat," said McDonald who also cited the fact that the entire Georgia Legislative Black Caucus staged a public walkout in opposition to the measure.

According to the Voting Rights Project, which has brought more than 300 suits to enforce minority voting rights since 1980, the Voting Rights Act requires that any changes to election laws in nine states, including Georgia, as well as portions of seven others, receive clearance from federal officials before going into effect. Department of Justice officials waited until late Friday afternoon to issue their decision giving the green light to the Georgia law. "If this law is implemented, Georgia will have the most draconian voter identification requirement in the nation," said McDonald. "This isn't the end of the issue. We and others certainly intend to challenge this decision in court under state and federal law."

In numerous formal letters sent to the Department of Justice in recent weeks, dozens of civil rights, religious, labor and advocacy groups, including prominent legal scholars and other experts in voting law, had urged the Department of Justice to block implementation of the measure citing various data that they say shows the racially discriminatory impact of H.B. 244.

*/ */ */


MUCH EARLIER: Democracy South Voting Rights Alert - New Georgia Voter ID Law Will Disenfranchise Voters & Depress Voting

All: Without a shred of evidence that voter impersonation is disenfranchising anyone, Georgia Republican lawmakers, under the guise of protecting elections, have passed the most restrictive voter photo ID law in the nation. Forms of acceptable ID have been reduced from 17 to six. The law contains no voter education component to let the public know what forms of ID are acceptable and how to obtain them. According to the League of Women Voters of Georgia, the "legislation will make Georgia the toughest place in the country for properly registered citizens . . . to cast a ballot in person."
http://www.lwvga.org/documents/May2005factsheet.pdf By enacting the most onerous and prohibitive voter ID requirements in the nation, the new law will disproportionately impact two core Democratic constituencies in Georgia--over 152,000 GA voters over 60 without driving licenses; and, black voters in the state who are four times more likely than whites to lack a drivers license.

At the same time, GA lawmakers liberalized access to absentee ballots increasingly favored by Republican voters. Under the new law the state will drop a pre-existing provision that required a compelling justification for a grant of an absentee ballot. Unlike voter impersonation for which there is little or no evidence of fraud in Georgia, absentee balloting has long been a notorious mode of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Yet, under the new law, absentee voters are not required to provide any proof of identity.

The truth of the matter is that these changes in Georgia voting law were engineered by a partisan faction for the sole purpose of enacting permanent ballot access advantages for its supporters. Secretary of State Kathy Cox has pointed out that white Georgians are five times more likely to own a car or truck than black Georgians. The law will depress the vote of lower income seniors, blacks and Latinos who don't have photo IDs because they don't have cars or trucks. At the same time, the liberalized absentee ballot requirements will grow the vote of higher income absentee voters. There is a fraud here but it has nothing to do with voter impersonation. Pure and simple, this is about a naked partisan effort to cook the electorate to their advantage by making voting easier for their voters and more difficult for their opponents.

All across the land over the last decade, elections, especially presidential contests, have been tightening. Increasingly election outcomes will be decided by small margins. Republicans have played their hand in Georgia and the rest of us in the South need to take heed. Make no mistake about it, this kind of partisan election rigging masquerading as "election protection" is coming to your state soon. It's the "New Disfranchisement" and it must be exposed and aggressively resisted. It is certainly fair to demand from legislators contemplating such laws proof that voter impersonation is a real and verifiable threat to the integrity of elections. Available studies show that it is not (please
see: http://www.demos-usa.org/pubs/EDR_-_Securing_the_Vote.pdf). It can also be readily shown that new voting requirements like those in Georgia have a disparate impact on poor, minority and senior voters.

[wildeyed]

1. I posted this in GD, too.

What was I thinking????? Anyone want to chime in, here it is http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4494123

[Kerrytravelers]

2. It saddens me that so many are losing their basic rights...

...and yet, so few in this country are paying attention.

[wildeyed]

3. And it is depressing to me how many on this board

accept or even cheer on this type of legislation. Say Diebold, and everyone is frothing at the mouth, myself included. But old fashioned voter disenfranchisement is ok under the guise of "fraud prevention". What a load.