The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Federal court challenging Alabama’s photo voter I.D. law. The suit, which was filed on behalf of Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP, claims requiring voters to show photo I.D. is “discriminatory” and would disenfranchise over 250,000 Alabamians, many of them black and latino, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“The State’s deliberate decision to enforce this discriminatory photo ID law, followed by the DMV office closures, has compelled us to take action,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. “It is appalling that sixty years after Rosa Parks’ courageous protest in Montgomery and fifty years after voting rights activists marched in Selma, the Alabama Legislature continues to pass laws that are designed to deprive people of color of their basic civil rights.”
“Alabama’s legacy of discrimination against black and latino people means that people of color are much more likely to live in poverty than white people, and much less likely to possess photo IDs,” added Liliana Zaragoza, a litigation fellow at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
As evidence for their claims, plaintiffs in the case detail the story of an 18-year-old high school student referred to as “G.A.,” who they say will not be able to vote because she does not have transportation and budget cuts forced the closure of the DMV closest to her home.
“G.A. does not own a car, nor has she ever driven one,” the complaint explains. “Her parents have access to vehicles, but both parents work full-time and are unable to drive G.A. to Sheffield during that ALEA office’s normal hours… [I]t would be unduly burdensome for G.A. or her parents to take time off from work or school to go to the ALEA offices in Sheffield or Franklin County during those offices’ limited hours of operation.”
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill rejected the suit offhand, saying photo voter I.D. is in no way a barrier to voting, much less discriminatory.
“We want to make it real easy to vote and real hard to cheat,” Secretary Merrill said in a statement. “As of today, there have been no credible reports of a lack of ability for someone to cast their vote because of this law.”
Merrill, who is responsible for administering and overseeing the state’s elections, says there will still be multiple opportunities for people in every county to obtain an I.D. — including a free state-issued voter I.D. — prior to election day.
“All 67 counties in Alabama have a Board of Registrars that issue photo voter I.D. cards,” he said. “If for some reason those citizens are not able to make it to the Board of Registrars, we’ll bring our mobile I.D. van and crew to that county.” The van has already visited every county in the state at least once this year.
Drivers licenses are just one of the many forms of identification accepted at Alabama’s polling places. Other forms of acceptable I.D. include non-driver I.D., Alabama Photo Voter I.D. card, State Issued I.D., Federal Issued I.D., U.S. Passport, Employee I.D. from the Federal Government, State of Alabama, County, Municipality, Board or other entity of Alabama, Student or employee I.D. from a public of private college or university in the State of Alabama, Military I.D., or a Tribal I.D.
In spite of the wide variety of useable forms of identification and the state’s free voter I.D. offering, many Democrats have continued to criticize the photo voter I.D. law.
At a reception in honor of Black History Month last year, Vice President Joe Biden said he hopes Congress will “modernize” the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to counter the “hatred” behind voter ID laws in Alabama, North Carolina and Texas.
“These guys never go away,” Biden said of supporters of voter I.D. “Hatred never, never goes away. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason.”
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said that “it’s a blast from the Jim Crow past” and Jesse Jackson claimed that “this new Jim Crow isn’t subtle.”
Hans A. von Spakovsky, the Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, dismisses such criticisms.
“It’s really a sign of how desperate critics of voter-ID laws are that they would raise such inflammatory, ridiculous claims,” he said. “Alabama’s new voter-ID law for both in-person and absentee voting went into effect last year. Despite the outcries that it would ‘suppress’ votes, there have been no problems or complaints that anyone has been unable to vote because of the new requirement. It’s been the same in all of the other states, such as Georgia and Indiana, that have implemented such ID laws. I’ve written numerous papers looking at turnout data in states after ID laws became effective — ID laws have no discernible effect on decreasing or preventing turnout.”
The NAACP’s lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Alabama. Governor Robert Bentley said in a statement that he will be reviewing the suit.
“Voting rights are important to every citizen, and it is imperative that every Alabamian who is eligible to vote have the ability to vote,” he said. “A photo ID protects the process of voting and ensures fair elections are held.”
NAACP sues Alabama claiming the state’s photo voter I.D. law is ‘discriminatory’ https://t.co/b61Q0w75wa
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 2, 2015
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