The Final Argument? Not Quite.

originally published March 21, 2007

The two-year battle over Georgia’s voter identification law has now made it to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Mar. 12 on the appeal of a lower court decision that ruled the voter ID requirement was a violation of the Georgia Constitution. It is expected to be several weeks before the justices rule on the matter, but their decision likely won’t be the final resolution. This one is guaranteed to go on and on for years to come. No matter what the Supreme Court does, there is still a federal lawsuit pending before U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy. He has already indicated in a previous ruling that the requirement to show a government-issued photo identification card before being allowed to cast a ballot may violate the U.S. Constitution. If the Supreme Court rules that the voter ID law is constitutional, the action will ping-pong right back into Murphy’s courtroom.

The voter ID issue has been a bitterly divisive one ever since Republican legislators first passed it - and Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue signed it - over the angry protests of Democrats. Perdue and his GOP allies contend that the photo ID requirement is necessary to prevent election day fraud. Democrats just as strongly maintain that the measure is a partisan attempt to hold down election turnout by African Americans, Latinos and elderly people who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford overturned the voter ID requirement last September, ruling that the law violated a state constitutional provision affording the right to vote to Georgia residents who are U.S. citizens at least 18 years of age and have registered to vote. “There is nothing in this law that denies one person the right to vote,” said Mark Cohen, Senior Assistant Attorney General, in his argument to the high court last week. He called Bedford’s decision “unprecedented, and I would submit to the court, with all respect to the court below, not supported by the Georgia Constitution, against the plenary authority of the General Assembly, and just defying common sense.

“There has to be a mechanism by which election officials are able to confirm the identity of a person voting at the polls,” Cohen said, noting that officials are already authorized to compare the signatures on absentee ballots to verify that the person casting the ballot is a registered voter. “You can’t just wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’m going to vote where I want to and when I want to,’” Cohen said. “There are some requirements that are legitimate.” One of the justices, however, suggested that Georgia’s lawmakers have in the past placed roadblocks in the path of certain people who wanted to cast a ballot. “This state has had a long and at times checkered history on the right to vote,” observed Justice Robert Benham, the first black jurist appointed to the Supreme Court. He was referring to past laws that required black voters to pass literacy tests or pay poll taxes, requirements that effectively prohibited them from voting.

The argument over voter ID, on one level, is an attempt to re-fight the 2002 battle for governor, when Perdue upset Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes. Barnes filed the lawsuit challenging the voter ID law on behalf of Rosalind Lake, a visually impaired black woman who was prevented from voting in last year’s primary election when she tried to use a MARTA card, which is not one of the approved forms of identification listed in the voter ID law. “When she went to vote, they said, ‘Oh no, that is not a government-issued photo ID,’” Barnes said in his dramatic courtroom style.

“You’ve got to go through jumping hoops” to obtain the photo ID required by the new law to vote, Barnes said, contending that this places an unreasonable burden on a person’s constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. “To vote requires greater proof than to put a man to death!” he said in mock outrage. “To put a man to death, we require them [trial witnesses] to take an oath and testify in a court of law,” but do not require them to show a government-issued photo ID.

Barnes agreed with Benham, saying, “the history of Georgia has been checkered in voting, let’s face it…. We only want a certain number of people, a certain color of people, to vote. That’s our history.” That history ensures the fight over voter identification will continue to rage long after the state Supreme Court rules on it.

Tom Crawford

Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news site at www.ciclt.net/garpt/ that covers government and politics in Georgia.