Voter ID battle set to rage again

By: Emily Schultheis
January 11, 2013 04:59 PM EST

The national battle over voter ID laws that roiled the presidential campaign for a time then fizzled before Election Day is set to rage again in 2013.

This year promises a flurry of new voter ID legislation across the country as well as reignited court battles in states where the laws were blocked last year and a Supreme Court ruling on part of the Voting Rights Act.

(PHOTOS: 7 controversial voter ID quotes)

All of the activity will bring the debate — which pits conservatives targeting potential election fraud against voting-rights groups convinced the laws are really about disenfranchising low-propensity liberal voters — to the forefront again.

“There are a number of states where there’s clearly active legislative attempts to make their voter ID laws more restrictive,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which has been involved in court challenges to a handful of the voter ID laws around the country. “This is not an issue that has gone away.”

(Also on POLITICO: Holder attacks voting restrictions)

States with voter ID legislation to be debated this year include Alaska, Arkansas, New York, North Carolina, Missouri, Montana, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. All of the bills would require voters to present some kind of government-issued photo ID in order to vote.

“Requiring identification when voting is a simple step that we can take to make our elections fairer and to ensure that the outcome of our elections actually reflects the will of our citizens,” West Virginia House Minority Leader Tim Armstead, a Republican, told The Associated Press this month. “People are required to show identification to cash a check, to enter many sporting and other events and to open bank accounts.”

(PHOTOS: 10 great quotes about voting)

Some states are introducing voter ID laws for the first time. Others, like Virginia and Alaska, aim to strengthen existing voter ID laws by introducing a strict photo ID requirement.

“In states that continue to be Republican strongholds, we’re going to see efforts again to get photo ID laws [passed],” said Denise Lieberman, senior attorney for the voting-rights group the Advancement Project. “The 2012 elections didn’t halt the movement of voting legislation.”

One state, Nevada, is proposing a different kind of voter ID law — one that would cull photos from the DMV and state databases rather than making voters bring their IDs to the polls. If a voter doesn’t have a photo in the database, they would be photographed at the polling station.

But Nevada is an exception to the rule around the country, since most legislatures that are taking up strict photo ID laws are modeling their proposals on statutes approved elsewhere in recent years.

Even in states where the voter ID battle was fought through much of 2012, the issue is far from settled. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, voting-rights groups are looking to make temporary injunctions against those states’ laws permanent. In Texas and South Carolina, where the Justice Department blocked strict voter ID laws from taking effect, appeals are under way.

“There’s still quite a bit of litigation that hangs in the balance now,” Lieberman said.

Pennsylvania’s voter ID law that was blocked for the 2012 election — which requires a state- or federal government-issued photo ID or certain types of student ID cards in order to vote — is technically in full effect now. Voting-rights groups in the state plan to file a long-term challenge to the law’s constitutionality as well as call for short-term injunctions so it’s not in effect for elections this year, beginning with a primary election in May.

“We have every intention of moving to block the law before there’s another election,” said Vic Walczak, legal director for the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been involved in challenging the law in court.

Walczak added that the earliest a major trial would happen is this summer; more likely it will be delayed until later in the year.

In Wisconsin, the blocked photo ID law is still being considered by a state appellate court — a decision that will likely be handed down sometime this year.

Looming over all these voter ID battles at the state level is the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder. Set for oral arguments on Feb. 27, it will decide the constitutionality of a part of the Voting Rights Act that has been key in stalling or blocking some of the strictest voting restrictions across the country.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires preclearance from the Department of Justice in parts or all of 16 states where discrimination has been present in the past — including Texas, South Carolina and Virginia, among others — before any new voting legislation is allowed to take effect.

“We would have seen a very different landscape across the country in 2012 if Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act wasn’t in place,” Lieberman said. “In Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi: Each of those states didn’t have a photo ID law in effect for the 2012 elections solely because of the Voting Rights Act. … If that law is struck down or scaled back somehow, it opens the door to [more] legislation like that.”

She added that Section 5 also plays a big role in how states craft their voting legislation in the first place, another way it safeguards against discriminatory legislation.

“If it’s still in place, legislatures are going to be careful about how they craft a law,” she said. “It’s a very compelling tool in helping [to] ensure that discriminatory laws don’t get passed.”

Weiser said that it’s “unlikely” the provision will be struck down by the Supreme Court but that there are other legal issues with strict voter ID laws that would still allow them to be defeated or struck down in the courts.

“Section 5 … is a potent tool for those being impacted by voter ID laws,” she said, “but it’s not the only tool and not the only legal obstacle those laws face.”

© 2013 POLITICO LLC