Some of you may not know it, but a trial took place last week in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the Honorable Harold Murphy, presiding, which may affect your right to vote. David Brackett and Emmett Bondurant of Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore, together with more lawyers from other law firms, are representing the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs consist of two real voting Georgians, Eugene Taylor from Sylvania, and Bertha Young from Rome, together with an assortment of groups such as Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the NAACP, just to mention a few.
The defendants in the case are the local Superintendents of the Boards of Elections of several Georgia Counties, together with the Georgia Secretary of State. The defendants are represented by the Office of the Georgia Attorney General and attorneys from two Atlanta law firms, Mark Cohen of Troutman Sanders, and Anne Lewis of Strickland, Brockington and Lewis in Atlanta.
Almost 2 years ago the plaintiffs filed suit in federal court to have the 2005 Voter ID legislation declared unconstitutional. The lawsuit arose out of the passage of HB 244 which was sponsored by Sue Burmeister (did not seek re-election in 2006) in the House and John Wiles (R-37) in the Senate. (You may remember Sue. She is the Republican who made national news by stating that Blacks in her district didn’t vote unless they were paid.)
After suit was filed the district court enjoined the implementation of the law. While this ruling was on appeal, the 2006 legislature changed the law in an attempt to fix the problems which the district court found present. According to David, there are numerous local special elections scheduled around the state for later in September and because of this he expects a ruling maybe as early as this week.
A few things about the law. First, this law has nothing to do with registering to vote. Logic tells me that if you provide sufficient identification when you register to vote, that ought to be enough.
Second, if you think the purpose of the law was to prevent fraud, think again. None of the defendants offered any testimony as to why the law was passed. Not so much as a word. You would think that ole Sue and John, who sponsored the legislation, would have gotten on the witness stand, raised their hand and sworn there was some good reason for wasting all this time fighting over a photograph on election day. Certainly, they could have explained just exactly what evil or problem this photo requirement was supposed to fix or avoid.
If not Sue and John, you would at least think that the Secretary of State of Georgia could tell the court (and you and me) why a few hundred years after the invention of photography and a few thousand years after the invention of voter fraud, this law was needed in Georgia. Well, the Secretary of State, both the former, Cathy Cox, and the current, Karen Handel, did testify during the course of the litigation, but they said that no one ever complained to their offices about voter fraud at the polls on election day. In fact, there has never been a single reported case of voter fraud by someone going to the polls on election day and trying to vote for someone else. I guess most people who steal another’s identify don’t try to go vote for them!
Third, if voter fraud occurs in Georgia, it probably occurs with regard to absentee ballots. But ole Sue and John, and the legislature did not try to fix voter fraud with regard to absentee ballots. This law didn’t deal with absentee ballots. Could this be because a greater number of Republicans vote absentee, than Democrats?
Fourth, the Secretary of State’s office did find out that between 200,000 and 400,000 registered voters do not have a driver’s license, the most common form of photo ID. This means simply that there are a lot of elderly and poor that can’t or don’t drive, but they do vote!
According to David, Mr. Taylor, is one of those people. Taylor testified that everyone in Sylvania knew who he was and a photo ID was not necessary. I feel the same way. In fact, it may be a small thing, but I don’t even like it when I go to vote and my next door neighbor asks me for my drivers license. It is one of those stupid bureacratic things that I detest, but since it is my neighbor, I am nice–most of the time.
Of course, the fact that the people that passed the law (the Republicans in the legislature) could not offer any reason justifying the law tells us why it was passed: to suppress the vote of the people who tend to vote for Democrats, the poor, the elderly and Blacks. Now, should anyone disagree, just raise your right hand, come on down to Vidalia and I will find us a court house where you can testify about it. Might even get a camera to record the event.
What should offend all of us, including the real Republicans who are fiscally responsible, is the amount of money the State is spending on high-priced lawyers to defend a law they can’t even justify. Nothing against the lawyers at all. They are just doing what their clients want. The state just shouldn’t have to hire them for this crap!
And on top of that, this case and this waste is a good example of how the U. S. Department of Justice under Alberto Gonzales and George Bush has been politicized. Due to the 1964 and/or 1965 Voting Rights Act legislation like this has to be approved by the Dept. of Justice. When the Republicans of Georgia, including Gov. Perdue, sent this law for approval, the staff attorneys recommended that it not be approved, but this recommendation was overruled by Alberto & Company. And so, here we are wasting good taxpayer money in court with a bad law that should have been nipped in the bud by a non-politically motivated Justice Department.
Somebody out there, do an Open Records request and find out how much the State has paid for this litigation so far! Less than a million? More than a million? Who knows?
Comments