Criticism of Voting Law Was Overruled (GA's voter ID law)

[Thom Little]

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.

The Justice Department has characterized the "pre-clearance" of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.

But an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post recommended blocking the program because Georgia failed to show that the measure would not dilute the votes of minority residents, as required under the Voting Rights Act.

The memo, endorsed by four of the team's five members, also said the state had provided flawed and incomplete data. The team found significant evidence that the plan would be "retrogressive," meaning that it would reduce blacks' access to the polls.

A day later, on Aug. 26, the chief of the department's voting rights section, John Tanner, told Georgia officials that the program could go forward. "The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the specified changes," he said in a letter to them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602504_pf.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Where's the justice in this Justice Department? This story is page one. nt

[toopers]

2. I am still puzzled.

What is wrong with proving who you are in order to vote?

[Frances]

3. It's very hard to get ID cards for people who don't drive

My brother in South Carolina found that out when he tried to get an ID card for my elderly mother, who moved to the state to be near him. It took 3 trips to the proper office before he got the ID card she needed so she could get on a plane to visit me.

Many elderly people don't drive and they don't have someone like my brother to help them get the ID cards they would need to vote. I seem to recall that Georgia was going to charge money for the ID cards and to people like me who remember the poll tax this charge seems like another poll tax. There were people in my home town who didn't vote because they couldn't afford that tax.