Georgia’s Voter ID Lawsuit, Seven Years Later: Disenfranchised, or Still Voting?

[Valin]

PJ Media:

Hmm. Witnesses later got IDs and voted in several elections, despite swearing under oath that they could not.

Hans von Spakovsky and Tiffany Bates

9/25/13

 

The recent passage of a voter ID law in North Carolina has sparked opponents to issue the same polemic statements that always accompany these reform efforts.

 

Phrases like poll tax, suppression, and even the new face of Jim Crow filled dispatches from Georgia media and liberal advocacy groups back in 2005, when Georgia passed an almost identical law. Just like in North Carolina today, Georgias law was called a deceitful, devious plan to deny votes to hundreds of thousands by callous lawmakers determined to restrict the franchise. Georgia now has the most draconian voter identification requirement in the nation, claimed Neil Bradley, associate director of the Atlanta-based ACLU Voting Rights Project. Reverend Nelson B. Rivers, COO of the NAACP, called it one of the worst anti-voting-rights laws in modern times.

 

(Snip)

 

When Common Cause Georgia a liberal citizens lobby organization originally filed a federal lawsuit in 2005 over Georgias voter ID law along with a number of other plaintiffs, the organization claimed that hundreds of thousands of Georgians would be unable to vote. They produced witness after witness who signed affidavits under penalty of perjury claiming that they did not have a photo ID and could not obtain the free Georgia photo ID the law provided, and therefore would be turned away at the polls. The plaintiffs lost their lawsuit (as well as a state court action) after the federal court concluded that the law was neither discriminatory nor a burden on voters, and that none of them would be unable to vote.

 

(Snip)

 

 

It appears these voter suppression photo ID laws are not working as turnout of minority voters went up, not down, in those states after the ID law was implemented.

DARN! Looks like we'll have to try something else.