Zoe Sullivan in Madison
Friday 10 October 2014
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/10/voter-id-law-blocked-us-supreme-court-wisconsin-texas
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The US supreme court has blocked a controversial voter ID law in Wisconsin that had theatened to cause chaos at the polls, as a federal court struck down a similar requirement in Texas.
The surprise move by the supreme court on Thursday restored a lower court ruling that postponed the introduction of the Wisconsin new law, pending a full trial. On 12 September, an appeals court had unexpectedly lifted a stay, meaning the law would be implemented with just weeks to go before the November elections.
The court wrote that it based its decision to stop implementation of the law due to the “proximity of the upcoming general election”. The order added: “It is particularly troubling that absentee ballots have been sent out without any notation that proof of photo identification must be submitted.” Three conservative justices – Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas – dissented.
The action means the Wisconsin law, which requires voters to present photo identification when they cast ballots, will not be in effect in the runup to the elections next month.
“Today’s order puts the brakes on the last-minute disruption and voter chaos created by this law going into effect so close to the election,” said Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union voting rights project. The ACLU and other groups said the law would cause confusion at the polls and reduce votes.
The Wisconsin attorney general said he would explore alternatives to address the court’s concerns regarding absentee ballots. “I believe the voter ID law is constitutional and nothing in the court’s order suggests otherwise,” JB Van Hollen said.
In Texas on Thursday, a federal judge struck down a law requiring voters to show identification at polls, saying it was unconstitutional and discriminated against minorities.
The ruling followed a two-week trial in Corpus Christi that challenged the controversial law. The US district judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos also found that it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax.
Political science professor Katherine J Cramer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said she was surprised by the supreme court’s decision in the Wisconsin case. It could have national implications, she said, given that Wisconsin is not the only state to have implemented voter ID laws. “If we can step back from the fact that voter ID legislation disadvantages voters, it’s an important statement about how we think about democracy,” Cramer said.
Voter ID rules have become a political and racial flashpoint across the US. Proponents of the laws argue they need such rules to prevent voter fraud. Their opponents say they are designed to suppress and disenfranchise poor and minority communities, who are most likely to vote Democrat.
On Wednesday, the US Government Accountability Officepublished a report that warned of the deleterious effects on turnout of voter ID laws. It compared turnout in Kentucky and Tennessee, both of which changed their voter ID requirements between the 2008 and 2012 elections, with four other states (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware and Maine) that did not. “Our analysis suggests that decreases in general election turnout in Kansas and Tennessee from 2008 to 2012 beyond decreases in comparable states are attributable to changes in voter ID requirements.”
“In both Kansas and Tennessee we found that turnout was reduced by larger amounts among African American registrants as compared with Asian American, Hispanic and white registrants.” The GAO stated that turnout among African Americans, in Kansas turnout fell by 3.7% more than among whites while in Tennessee the drop was in Kansas and 1.5% more.
The report also estimated that turnout in Kansas dropped by 3%, while in Tennessee it fell by 2.7% – and these decreases persisted even when controlling for variables for factors such as family income, employment status, marital status and race. The effect on 18-year-olds in Kansas in 2008 was 7.1% larger than on people between the ages of 44 and 53, for example.
While the study found that ID issues led to a relatively small number of provisional ballots being cast in Kansas and Tennessee, it also noted that fewer than half these ballots were counted. In close races such as the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, each ballot makes a difference.
In the supreme court decision, Alito’s dissenting opinion wrote that although it was “particularly troubling” that absentee ballots had been sent before the election without notifying voters of the identification requirements, there was no legal justification for blocking the law.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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