U.S. Justice Department suit aims to stop NC voter ID law

[WorseBeforeBetter]

Source: News & Observer

By Steve Harrison and Anne Blythe — [e-mail] [e-mail]

The U.S. Department of Justice will file a lawsuit Monday to stop North Carolina’s new voter ID law, which critics have said is the most sweeping law of its kind, according to a person briefed on the department’s plans.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who has said he will fight state voting laws that he sees as discriminatory, will announce the lawsuit at noon Monday, along with the three U.S. attorneys from the state. Critics said the law will disenfranchise African-American and elderly voters, while the Republican-led General Assembly in Raleigh said the law will protect the state’s voters from potential fraud.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, which required a handful of mostly Southern states to get approval from the Justice Department before making changes to their voting laws. The entire state of North Carolina wasn’t covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, though several counties were covered by the landmark law and had been subjected to additional federal scrutiny.

Since that case, the Obama administration filed suit in August to stop a new voter ID law in Texas. North Carolina is the second state it has sued since the so-called “preclearance” list of Southern states was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/09/29/3241293/us-justice-department-suit-aims.html

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I'd like to offer a hearty FU to McCrory, Pope, the Koch brothers, and the entire NC GOP delegation!

[mnhtnbb]

1. I second your hearty FU to Governor McCookie and the Popian band of Teapublicans.

[Duval]

2. X 1,000 n/t

[WorseBeforeBetter]

14. "Popian Dystopia"...

has rather a ring to it.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. I do not understand the problem with voter ID

.
.
.

We've had this for as long as I can remember, and do not see the problem.

Voter ID requirements might have prevented Dim-Son from ruling (ruining) the USA for 8 years.

I could understand if the Republicans were against the voter ID.

Easy to stack the deck with whomever methinks.

Up here ya need ID to buy booze or nicotine,

is not voting more important?



CC

[AlbertCat]

4. is not voting more important?

Well, if the government provided voter IDs to every citizen free.... in the mail or something... then OK.

But for as long as I can remember, registering with proof of residency has been fine. Voter Fraud is not a problem. Why fix it then?


Because the laws really have nothing to do with voter fraud.

[mnhtnbb]

5. It's not just about ID--and the hundreds of thousands of people who don't have them--

and cannot get them without birth certificates. Many elderly poor people
were born at home--no birth certificate. My uncle was one of them--he's
now 94--and when he wanted to get a passport in the 1970's to travel
out of the country (after serving in WW II, mind you) he had to get
my mom(his oldest sister)--who had a security clearance from the FBI during WW II--
write an affidavit of his birth.

Getting ID is NOT a simple or free process in this country.

On top of that, the NC Repubs loaded up the bill with all kinds of other measures
to restrict voting access: reducing # of early voting days, doing away with
Sunday early voting (HUGELY popular with African Americans who would
go from church to voting en masse); reducing early voting hours; making
it difficult for students to vote where they go to school; eliminating early
registrations for students who will become of age in the next election...on and on.

The whole point is that the Republicans want to make it as difficult as possible
for a lot of people to be able to vote. They hate democracy.

[Jamastiene]

10. And straight ticket voting.

They eliminated that too.

[mnhtnbb]

11. Right.

[texanwitch]

6. It is a poll tax, plan and simple.

I have seen a poll tax, a piece of paper that cost $1.25.

You needed this to vote.

That was a lot of money back then.

Look it up.

It was a way to keep people from voting.

[LanternWaste]

16. Elderly Texas Woman May Be Disenfranchised After Being Denied A Voter ID Three Times

Merely one example.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/26/2683971/dorothy-card-voter-id/


The hurdles being put into place are not to protect the integrity of voting from the wholly fictional problem of voter fraud, but instead to disenfranchise voters.

The amount of voter fraud is on par with the amount of wild shark attacks in Alberta... it's a solution without a problem, hiding its true intent.



"Voter ID requirements might have prevented Dim-Son from ruling (ruining) the USA for 8 years. ..."
On what do you predicated that premise?

[trublu992]

7. I'm wondering if this is the GOP's goal, to pass these draconian

voting laws so they will be challenged in court ultimately the Supreme court. There the conservatives will use
the challenges to chip away at the voting rights act.

[Gothmog]

8. This is Great News. BTW, there are some interesting differences between Texas and NC laws

I know a great deal about the Texas voter id law and remember that some posters from North Carolina were upset that the DOJ filed against Texas first. After reading the petition, I can see why Texas was first. You can read the petition here http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/dojnclawsuit.pdf I have read the section dealing with voter ID and found that the North Carolina law as described in the DOJ petition is actually more liberal than the Texas voter id law (SB 14) in a number of key aspects. For example, the North Carolina law allows Veteran’s cards and indian tribe identifications to be used:

………(5) a Veteran’s identification card issued by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs; (6) a tribal enrollment card issued by a federally- or State-recognized tribe;

The Texas voter ID law does not allow for these forms of identification but does provided that conceal carry permits are acceptable.

Next, the North Carolina law exempts persons over 70 from having identifications that is current on the voter’s 70th birthday:

Voters who are 70 years of age and older are exempted from the requirement that the photo identification be unexpired; however, the photo identification they present must have been unexpired on the voter’s 70th birthday.

In Texas, the free id, i.e., the Election Identification Certificate, issued to a voter who is 70 years or older does not expire while EICs issued to other voters do expire.

Third, voters with disabilities are treated differently. In North Carolina is a voter qualifies for curbside assistance, then that voter can present forms of identification that are acceptable under the Help America Vote Act which includes ultility bills and other correspondence:

(3) registered voters who qualify to cast a ballot curbside because of age or physical disability. The voters in at least the last category must show one of the forms of identification approved by the HAVA for first-time voters who register by mail

In, Texas only voters who are more than 50% disabled according to the Social Security Administration or the Veteran’s Administration and who submit paper documenting such disability to the county voter registrar can meet the disability exemption.

Finally, under the North Carolina law, the counties are required to provide free birth certificates to any voter who requests a birth certificate in order to get the free identification from the state:

Further, although HB 589 requires a North Carolina register of deeds to issue without charge a certified copy of a birth certificate or marriage license to any registered voter who declares that he or she needs the document to obtain a photo identification in order to vote, it does not address any fees that will be imposed on voters who will have to obtain the requisite underlying documentation from out-of-state agencies.

In Texas there is no provision for free birth certificates.

The North Carolina law is actually a more liberal law compared to the Texas law and the DOJ still sued. To me, this means that Texas may have a harder time justifying SB14 given that the Texas voter id law is far stricter than the North Carolina law in many respects. The fact that the DOJ has a court ruling that the Texas act adversely affects the voting rights of minorities combined with the fact that the Texas voter id law is a much stricter law explains why the DOJ filed suit in Texas first.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

15. Thx for the post.

At work and only occasionally skimming...will read later.

[Jamastiene]

9. I second your hearty FU!

K&R

I hope the Justice Department takes McCrory down a few notches. That egotistical asshole is getting on my last nerve with all his horrible new laws.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

13. My reaction to Patsy has reached Bush-like levels...

visceral.

He made a statement about the lawsuit, and predictably framed it as "red v. blue," with a swipe against Obama. Of course, he didn't mention redistricting or the fact that Dems outvoted Republicans in straight-party voting, which is why they did away with it.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. UPDATE: Gov. McCrory says Justice Department's voting lawsuit is 'overreach and without merit'

By John Frank — [e-mail]

RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday called the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit against North Carolina’s voting law “overreach and without merit.”

“I firmly believe we’ve done the right thing. I believe this is good law. And I strongly disagree with the action that the attorney general has taken,” McCrory told reporters.

The governor, dressed more casually than normal after his visit to the N.C. Zoo earlier in the day, struck a defiant tone in his remarks. He cast the legal battle as a matter of state’s rights, saying he would “defend our right to have common sense laws right here in North Carolina.”

McCrory called the move political and fired back at President Barack Obama, citing a video — from a year ago — showing the president presenting an identification card to vote in Chicago. “I believe if showing a voter ID is good enough and fair enough for our own president in Illinois, it’s good enough for the people in North Carolina,” he said. “I think it is obviously influenced by national politics since the Justice Department ignores similar laws in other blue states.”

....

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/09/30/3242351/gov-mccrory-says-justice-departments.html#storylink=cpy