TailOverTeaKettle.com

U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy continued to hold Georgia’s new law (requiring phot ID for voting) hostage. While he did not issue an injunction against enforcement in the Novemeber election (at least not yet), he has said that it can not be enforced for any local special elections that might take place next week.

According to the Gwinnett Daily Post, Murphy also

In fact, Murphy commended the state for its efforts to inform voters that under the new law they must present at the polls a valid form of government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license or U.S. passport. However, he said halting the law during next week’s elections is in the public’s interest and will not harm the state’s preparations for November. ‘’There are not many people with voter ID cards when the evidence shows that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people'’ that don’t already have a state-approved photo ID, Murphy said.

For the life of me I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say.

I assume that he meant to say that there is a large number of people who have properly registered to vote, but who do not hold valid photo ID. From an earlier report:

A comparison of the state’s voter registration database with the DDS database shows that more than 300,000 registered voters in Georgia may lack ID issued by DDS. The judge noted that only 953 voters had sought a free voter ID card.

Now former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes contends that the Georgia State Constitution does not specifically state that a photo ID is a requirement for voting, so it should not be a requirement. At least that is a defensable position. But this literal reading fails to address the question - the voter is required to register to vote, but not prove that they are, in fact, the person who actually registered.

You can take a look at the Georgia State Constitution. Here are the relevent sections:

I’m not a lawyer, and won’t pretend to be an expert on the legalities of the case. It wouldn’t do anything for the election this Novermber, but what if the General Assembly were to change the rules related to voter registration (pursuant to The General Assembly shall provide by law for the registration of electors.). In this change, all citizens of Georgia would be presented a Voter ID card, this time which also contained a Photo ID.

When you do apply for a drivers’ license, you also can simultaneously register to vote. In these cases, the same photo can be digitally applied without any additional steps for the voter.

Of course, this approach means that the new VoterID cards could be phased in over a period of years.

Taking this longer-term approach, would the anti-photo camp have any legitimate complaints to stop eventual enforcement?

UPDATE: Coincidentally, today a judge in Missouri also held off an attempt to enact a Photo ID law there as well. In the MO case, it appears that the hang up is the need for people to pay for the ID in question. According to the judge, it violated the Hancock provision of the Missouri Constitution that prohibits the state from imposing unfunded mandates on local governments. Talk about mis-applying the intention of legislation!