Webloggin » Judge Claims that Photo ID's Discriminate at the Polls

No ID Required

The following judgement is the latest in a string of court decisions that claims that requiring a photo id to vote somehow disenfranchises a segment of the population.

The claim is that acquisition of a photo ID is tantamount to a poll tax.

A state judge ruled Tuesday that a Georgia law requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification violates the State Constitution and could not be enforced.

In issuing a permanent injunction against the latest version of the Voter ID Act, the judge, T. Jackson Bedford Jr. of Fulton County Superior Court, said legislators overstepped their authority when they imposed a condition on the right to vote by requiring a photo ID.

“Nowhere in the Constitution is the legislature authorized to deny a registered voter the right to vote on any other ground, including a possession of a photo ID,” he wrote.

Judge Bedford wrote he was particularly troubled by a provision in the law that allows a registered voter without an approved photo ID to cast a ballot on Election Day but says that vote would not be counted unless the voter returned with an ID within two days.

“The result of this provisional-ballot scheme,” he wrote, “is to disenfranchise an otherwise qualified voter who does not comply with the additional conditions imposed by the legislature.”

Judge Bedford’s ruling was a significant setback for the Republican-led effort to enforce a photo ID requirement at the polls in Georgia. A spokesman for Thurbert E. Baker, the state attorney general, said the state was already drafting an appeal and would file it to the Georgia Supreme Court as soon as possible. - NY Times - State Judge Voids Georgia Law Requiring a Photo ID of Voters

The last paragraph is a key concept to understanding the impetus behind the decision. Make no mistake about it; Democrats are threatened by laws that require the proper identification of voters in an effort to eliminate voter fraud.

Even Jimmy Carter understands the need to have a photo ID in an effort to eliminate fraud as demonstrated below.

The most controversial recommendation calls for all voters to produce a standard photo identification card before being allowed to vote. The commission proposes that, by 2010, voters be required to use either the Real ID card, which Congress this spring mandated as the driver’s license of the future in all states. For about 12 percent of eligible voters who do not have a driver’s license, the commission says states should provide at no cost an identification card that contains the same key information.

Critics of voter ID cards say the requirement could raise privacy issues and intimidate or discourage some Americans, particularly the elderly, the poor and minorities, from participating in elections. To alleviate those concerns, the Carter-Baker commission urges states to make it easy for non-drivers to obtain such cards and seeks measures to ensure privacy and security for all voters. The commission report states that by adopting a uniform voter ID card, minorities would be better protected from shifting identification standards at individual polling places.

Still, the proposed ID card drew sharp dissent from some commissioners, among them former Senate Democratic leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). In a dissent joined by two other commissioners, Daschle likened the ID to a “modern day poll tax.” – WAPO - September 2005

You would think that a free ID could not be considered a poll tax. But George Washington University professor Spencer Overton who is a member of the Carter Baker commission disagrees.

The Carter-Baker ID proposal also lacks an effective safety net for eligible voters who have had their cards stolen or lost, or who have simply forgotten to bring their IDs to the polls.
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Granted, most Americans would bring a Real ID card to the polls if required to do so, and some who forget to bring ID would track down the “appropriate election office” and present ID within the commission’s 48-hour deadline. But millions of Americans — many of whom are poor, elderly, disabled or people of color — would not overcome the commission’s hurdles.

What a load of crap. The bottom line is that Democrats need victims to get themselves elected. It is much better to find reasons not to fix a broken system them remove obstacles to legitimacy in their eyes. Once the victims are gone the democrat voter base disappears. Welcome to the Democrat Party.