Ping.
Here's local reporting, "Marietta Daily Journal"
"Fulton judge blocks Georgia s voter ID law
Saturday, July 8, 2006 1:29 AM EDT
By Aaron Baca
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
"MARIETTA - Georgia's on-again, off-again political ping-pong battle over whether voters should be required to show state-issued identification cards at polls flared again Friday. A Fulton County Superior Court judge - with only 11 days to go before Georgia's primary elections - blocked the state from requiring voters to show photo IDs to prove who they are at polls. Judge Melvin Westmoreland issued a 30-day restraining order blocking the state's voter ID law in a lawsuit filed in Fulton by former Gov. Roy Barnes on behalf of two Georgia residents who, according to Barnes, lack the photo IDs required under the law, but are otherwise qualified to vote.
The voter ID law violates the Georgia Constitution by "placing a restrictive condition on the right of a citizen to vote," Westmoreland stated in a four-page order.
The state announced it intends to appeal the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court. In his order, Westmoreland said the voter ID law "unduly burdens the fundamental right to vote" and that the law will cause "irreparable harm."
Westmoreland referred the case back for a civil trial. No trial date has been set yet. Barnes, who said he was somewhat surprised by Westmoreland's order, said the court affirmed Constitutional provisions that guarantee all qualified Georgia residents the right to vote.
"The state cannot create a system that impedes the basic right to exercise the franchise," Barnes said during an afternoon news conference at his Marietta law office. Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly have fought bitterly over the voter ID law for the past two years.
The law, which was passed in 2005, restricted the number of acceptable forms of identification that may be used at polls. Under the law, voters are required to present valid photo IDs. Republicans said the law was passed to prevent voter fraud.
Acceptable forms of photo ID are a Georgia voter photo ID, a U.S. passport, a Georgia driver's license, a military ID card, tribal identification or a workplace-issued ID card. As originally passed, the law would have required voters to pay for a photo ID if they did not already have one. A federal judge blocked that law, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax.
Republican leaders in the Legislature pushed an amendment through earlier this year changing the law so that free IDs would be issued to voters lacking them. As part of the amendment, the Legislature also paid for ID-making machines to be installed in all of the state's county registration offices. So far, few residents throughout the state have applied for the new voter ID cards. Only nine of the IDs had been issued in Cobb as of Friday, said Beth Kish, a Cobb voter registration manager.
Westmoreland's order means the 17 forms of identification that were previously sufficient for voters at polls will once again be acceptable July 18. Those forms of ID range from driver's licenses to utility bills. Barnes' office argued the voter ID law would keep many from voting, including the elderly, the poor and minority voters.
Barnes claims there have been no documented instances of fraud at the polls in at least 10 years. He said fraud, however, has been found in the state's absentee voting process. "It's a blatant political ploy," Barnes said, accusing Republicans of trying to place restrictions on voters at the polls but not on voters who use absentee ballots.
State Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said opinion polls show that 85 percent of Georgians support requiring photo IDs to vote. Barnes, Johnson said, "can screw up democracy better than any person I know."
Despite a planned appeal, the state likely will have to reorganize its processes once again for the upcoming primary election, said state Sen. John Wiles (R-Kennesaw).
"Now we're going to have an election without picture IDs appropriate to prove who people say they are," Wiles said.
By blocking the voter ID law, the Fulton court may weaken the public's trust in the upcoming election, Wiles said.
"If citizens don't believe the process is free of fraud, then the government loses its right to govern," Wiles said.
Wiles said allegations of absentee voter fraud have not been proven. "If they can show me there's any fraud in the absentee system, then I'll fix it," Wiles said.
Because the Fulton order was issued so close to the primary election, poll workers may become confused about how to manage elections July 18, Cobb County's Ms. Kish said. "The hard part is dealing with poll workers," Ms. Kish said.
Those workers are volunteers who work only a couple of days a year and may not be certain what rules are in effect, Ms. Kish said. "I think (the law) is clear to the people in the office, but the poll workers are confused by all this when it changes so often," Ms. Kish said."