{"id":3268,"date":"2012-10-11T14:15:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T19:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2012-10-22T15:40:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T20:40:51","slug":"federal-court-rules-that-sc-photo-id-law-does-not-in-fact-require-photo-id","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/11\/federal-court-rules-that-sc-photo-id-law-does-not-in-fact-require-photo-id\/","title":{"rendered":"Court rules that SC voter ID law does not, in fact, require photo ID"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Becci Robbins<\/strong>
\nSC Progressive Network Communications Director<\/p>\n

Following the federal court ruling that approved a substantially modified version of South Carolina’s voter ID law, SC Progressive Network<\/a> Director Brett Bursey called the venture “very expensive theater.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ruling begins by noting “South Carolina’s new (photo ID) law…does not require a photo ID to vote.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Gov. Nikki Haley crowed, “This is not just a win for South Carolina, this is a win for our country,” and state Attorney General Alan Wilson hailed the ruling as a vindication of Republican state legislators, the law the court approved is not the one that went to Washington.<\/p>\n

District Court Judge Bates said in his opinion, “Act 54 as now pre-cleared is not the Act 54 that was enacted in May 2011,” when signed by Gov. Haley.<\/p>\n

While the Court acknowledged “an absence of recorded incidents of in-person voter fraud in South Carolina,” it found that “preventing voter fraud and increasing electoral confidence are legitimate” reasons for the law.<\/p>\n

“After several years of divisive and racially charged debate on this unnecessary law,”\u00a0Bursey said, “after $2 million in taxpayer money spent defending it, and several million more dollars to implement it, our photo ID law will not require voters to have a photo ID to vote.”<\/p>\n

The original law allowed a voter to claim a “reasonable impediment” to not having a photo ID, and left it to the county board of elections to determine whether the reason was legitimate. Today’s ruling said that the reason for not having a photo ID “is to be determined by the individual voter, not the poll manager or county board. So long as the reason given by the voter is not a lie, an individual voter may express any one of of the many conceivable reasons why he or she has not obtained a photo ID…voters with the non-photo voter registration card…may still vote without a photo ID.”<\/p>\n

Judge Baker wrote, “It is understandable that the [Dept. of Justice] and the intervenors [including the SC Progressive Network] in this case, would raise serious concerns about South Carolina’s voter photo ID law as it then stood.”<\/p>\n

The governor’s victory dance notwithstanding, Judge Baker concluded, “One cannot doubt the vital function that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has played here. Without the review process under the voting Rights Act South Carolina’s voter photo ID law certainly would have been more restrictive.”<\/p>\n

Calling it political theater, Bursey said, “The grandstanding on this issue by the governor and the Republican majority of the legislature comes at a very real cost to taxpayers, voters and election workers. It is partisan politics at its worst.”<\/p>\n

The law will go into effect in 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Delores Freelon has been jumping through hoops for more than a year trying to obtain a SC photo ID. In August, she testified in front of the three-judge panel in Washington, DC.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Becci Robbins SC Progressive Network Communications Director Following the federal court ruling that approved a substantially modified version of South Carolina’s voter ID law, SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey called the venture “very expensive theater.” The ruling begins … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12,9],"tags":[180,142,134,87,44,179],"class_list":["post-3268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-newscommentary","category-network-newsevents","category-sc-newscommentary","tag-alan-wilson","tag-brett-bursey","tag-gov-nikki-haley","tag-sc-politics","tag-sc-progressive-network","tag-voter-photo-id-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3268"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3285,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions\/3285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}