Appeals court upholds Arizona's voter ID requirement

An appeals court upheld a requirement in a 2004 Arizona law that voters show identification before they can cast ballots, saying that there wasn't evidence that the mandate disparately affected Latinos as the challengers had alleged.

A 12-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling Tuesday that there was evidence Arizona has racially polarized voting and a history of discrimination against Latinos, but concluded that no proof was offered to show that the ID requirement gave Latinos fewer opportunities to vote.
...
The decision by the larger panel of the court said Arizona's requirement that voters show IDs before casting a ballot wasn't a poll tax and doesn't violate equal protection rights within the Constitution.

One of the most unfortunate circumstances relating to the 2012 elections is the absence of DOJ enforcement of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act. Voter rolls nationwide are filled with ineligible and dead voters. Yet the Department of Justice is deliberately refusing to enforce Section 8 and require states to purge rolls because of philosophical disagreement with the purging statute. Failure to enforce Section 8 to require states and localities to clean up voter rolls presents a troubling circumstance prior to the November 2012 elections.

Some counties in the United States have outrageous and implausible percentages of voting age citizens registered to vote. Consider just a few. Noxubee County, where widespread voter fraud was proven in the case I litigated of United States v. Ike Brown, has 113% of voting age citizens eligible to vote.4 In the case, the United States presented evidence of in-person voter impersonation. But Noxubee isn’t even the worst county in Mississippi. Ten counties have higher percentages than 113%, including Tunica where 2011 saw multiple voter fraud convictions, and Claiborne County, Mississippi, where 162% of eligible voting age population is on the rolls. Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has begged these counties to clean up their corrupted rolls, but Mississippi law provides him no statutory weaponry, except begging. The Justice Department has the power to step in and sue states and counties to clean up their rolls, but it deliberately refuses to act.

Unfortunately, the Justice Department has not brought a single case under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act. Indeed, when I was at the Voting Section, political appointees expressed open and outright hostility to enforcing Section 8. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified under oath that he recommended eight Section 8 investigations into various states, but that the political appointees overseeing the Voting Section simply said the Obama administration would not enforce Section 8 to require the removal of ineligible voters.5 Coates also testified that political appointees announced to the entire Voting Section in November 2009 that the Obama administration would never enforce Section 8 to require states to purge ineligible voters. Coates’ testimony was given under oath, and I can corroborate his account because I was also an eyewitness. Dozens of other eyewitnesses to these instructions exist.

With over 150 counties across the nation with more voters on the rolls than could possibly be eligible to vote, the outright refusal to enforce Section 8, a provision that was part of a carefully crafted compromise by Congress in 1993, threatens the integrity of the elections in November 2012.

All states need voter ID requirements.

Chalk up another win for the American voters!!

ACLU, NAACP will sue over Pennsylvania voter ID law
April 10, 2012

HARRISBURG - Critics of the month-old voter-identification law are poised to challenge it in the courts and General Assembly.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will file suit over the law's constitutionality by the end of April, and two Philadelphia Democrats are set to introduce a bill Tuesday that would repeal the controversial measure.

only if they're free and come with your voter i.d. card.

Pa's is free, yet as posted the ACLU and NAACP still wants to sue over it. So even free is not good enough..

pa has photo i.d. on voter registration cards? or pa state i.d. is free? news to me as a pittsburgher half my life.

and even if free, the timing has to be in question. why not do this the year after a presidential election? why do everything in your power to restrict voting the year of a presidential election? especially when voter fraud in most of the states passing these laws is well under 1%? (4 in a million in oh, 2 in a million in wi, can't find az's rate, etc.). doesn't make sense from a cost-benefit perspective.

i'm all for regulation, but let's make it free and do it in an off year.

ALL voters will be required to show a photo ID before voting at a polling place in the November 2012 Election

See a complete list of acceptable photo IDs. If you do not have one of these IDs and require one for voting purposes, you may be entitled to get one FREE OF CHARGE at a PennDOT Driver License Center. NO ONE legally entitled to vote will be denied the right to do so.

Pennsylvania House backs photo-ID bill for voters
June 24, 2011

HARRISBURG - A bill that would require Pennsylvanians to show photo identification at the polls cleared the House on Thursday after nearly 10 hours of partisan debate over three days.

The 108-88 vote sent the measure to the Senate.

The bill would require most voters to show photo ID before casting a ballot in any election. Residents now have to show ID only the first time they go to the polls.

http://www.votespa.com



before it was as long as it's free.. not suddenly as long as it's free and during an off year??? Glad this bill was started far before 2012.

http://articles.philly.com/2011-0...ling-place

only if they're free and come with your voter i.d. card.


except for all those who don't have i.d. and won't be able vote. big loss for them, right?

this is effectively a poll tax and should be overturned.

it's still the same issue. what are the criteria for it to be free, it says "may be free"?

and hey look at this -- http://news.yahoo.com/pennsylvani...00552.html -- the bill wasn't signed until a month ago.

i'm guessing the type that don't follow this issue that closely are probably the type that don't have i.d. already and are the type to only vote in presidential election years. i wonder how many will find out about this at the poll on election day?

Thanks for your opinion!

The racism of low expectations.

Too lazy or too stupid...disparately impacts blacks.