S.C. Attorney General to Appeal Voter ID Ruling
Advocates of the law hope to see it in place before the 2012 election.
The battle over the South Carolina voter ID law is not over and state leaders say they will take the fight back to the U.S. Justice Department.
State lawmakers said they plan to fight U.S. Justice Department for rejecting the controversial voter ID law on the basis of racial discrimination.
Officials with the S.C. Attorney General's office said they are moving forward with plans to file an appeal but would not confirm plans for a lawsuit.
"We plan to exhaust every legal action at our disposal," Communications Director for the Attorney General’s office Mark Plowden said.
“We do expect to file a challenge. The legal documents to appeal will be filed at the end of the month.”
Although the law's co-sponsor Larry Grooms acknowledged the law is discriminatory, he rejected the assumption that it was targeting minority voters.
"In a way it is discriminatory against those who would like to vote under false pretenses," said Grooms, R-Berkeley. "It's discriminatory against those who cheat."
Grooms said the reason the Justice Department rejected the voter ID law was because it contained more rigid requirements than similar laws passed in states like Georgia, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
The Palmetto State is faced with the battle for the voter ID law at the same time as lawmakers fight for the survival of the controversial immigration reform law.
The letter from the Justice Department explained that the voter ID law would disproportionately impact minority voters. Of the 2,701,843 registered voters in the state 239,333 did not possess a DMV-issued photo ID as of Oct. 1, 2011.
Ten percent of non-white registered voters lacked the proper identification required by the law whereas only 8.4 percent of white registered voters lacked proper identification, according to the letter.
Other states that have passed similar voter ID laws provide more options for the types of identification voters can use at the polls. Some states, like Georgia, took it a step further and provided the Justice Department with plans to increase voter participation.
"Georgia spent a lot of time explaining how they were increasing voter participation, there was a big education component in Georgia," Grooms said. "South Carolina did not do that."
Senator Larry Martin, R-Pickens, said the South Carolina law was not passed because of the state's history of discriminatory laws.
"It's okay everywhere else but because South Carolina was at one time the heart of the South and we had Jim Crow Laws, we're going to punish modern day South Carolina," Martin said.
Last fall the state offered free rides to the Department of Motor Vehicles to anyone who needed one in order to get their photo ID, however very few people took advantage of the program. Martin said access to media and information was not the the cause of the low turnout.
"I've seen very dilapidated houses around with a better television than I have," Martin said. "Folks that are that tuned out and have never heard about the photo ID law, they're not apt to tune in to voting period."
Martin said it remains important for the state to enact the voter ID law before the 2012 elections in November to prevent voter fraud among the undocumented immigrant population in the state.
"They don't get to vote and attempt to influence public policy," Martin said. "That's just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. It hasn't happened yet, but I think it's coming."
Advocates of the law say it is needed because of rampant voter fraud here in the state. Grooms cited two examples of voter fraud in the Lowcountry that have never been documented.
"Voter fraud is something very hard to prove," Grooms said. "Once someone pushes that button in the voting machine it's done."
South Carolina Democrats say the reason the type of voter fraud that the voter ID law seeks to combat - voter impersonation - is hard to prove is that it doesn't happen.
"It's a bill that was put up to address a problem that didn't exist," Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman George Tempel said. "Look at the times it's been prosecuted, there are none."
Tempel said Democrats opposed the law for several reasons. The biggest reason for the opposition he said is the thousands of largely poor and rural state residents who do not have a state issued picture ID that would be disenfranchised by the law. He said the law and others like it around the country are part of a national effort to make it harder for Democratic leaning voters to cast ballots.
Tempel said writing and passing the bill also took up valuable time in the General Assembly that should have been used to improve the state's education system and economy.
Grooms said lawmakers were ready to file a lawsuit against the Justice Department to get the law passed as it stands. If a lawsuit against the Justice Department is unsuccessful, state lawmakers say they will consider amending the bill to include a voter education component and more lenient identification requirements to ensure its passage.
"Right now we'll take our chances in federal court," Grooms said.
Plowden said he was not aware of any immediate plans to file a lawsuit, but he had not been in communication with Grooms. The state Attorney General’s office plans to take it one step at a time.
“Our goal is to ensure that a constitutional statute is put into effect per the wishes of the people of this state,” Plowden said.
Gretchen
7:29 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
Holder NEEDS all these illegal votes to get the Democrats re-elected. Next thing you know the "dead" will be voting in SC just like they do in the city of Chicago ....
Sammy
12:31 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
I remember way back in the late 50's my mother telling me how many dead people had voted in an election. We lived in Belvedere at the time.
Nadjia
5:45 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
How about the extreme republican agenda to suppress monority votes . Rove said it on Fox News nothing to hide it is crystal clear. Holder is protecting the right to vote for people with no Id, no birth certificate.....
Eleanor
9:17 pm on Friday, January 6, 2012
The SC State Elections Commission works hard to be sure the dead don't vote. They also check social security numbers against neighboring states in order to remove the names of people who have moved. One would assume that they have a computer program to check the voter rolls against the registry of people who have died. I sincerely doubt that dead people vote in SC.
But, over 2000 votes were incorrectly recorded in the 2010 general election in SC. Now, that is something worth correcting and the legislature isn't doing anything about it because they "don't have the money." If they spent the money they are spending on this unnecessary and unfortunate photo ID, they could begin to replace our voting machines with a technology that allows votes to be recounted when needed.
Ron
9:50 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
From a fellow South Carolinian:
The US gov. has spoken……Power to the 99%. James Crow, Esquire is alive and well. The decedents of Jim Crow are now more educated and have mutated to hate their own as well. Money/Power is King; however the 99% will prevail.
Nadjia
5:44 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
Ron you are right . Evil won't prevail over fairness. 99% will win
Texasbahr
10:59 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
In the voice of Foghorn Leghorn,.." I say, I say, the south will rule again".
Could anyone believe that it was said, "in a way, it discriminates against those who would like to vote under false pretenses"?
That's right, and jail discriminates against the prisoners it holds.
Good old Micky Haley. She never met a bigot or a business that pays her off she didn't like. South Carolinians deserve better.
Geneva Lawrence
7:22 am on Saturday, January 7, 2012
No, South Carolinians deserve who they vote for.
stanley seigler
11:51 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@Gretchen: "the "dead" will be voting in SC just like they do in the city of Chicago ...."
COMMENT
look forward to any proof you can provide that a "dead person" voted in chicago...YES there was/is fraud in chicago and other locations...but not at polling place by an individual (the focus of SC law).
bet you mitt's $10,000 there are none. just like the mickey mouse voter...ie;
"Nobody who registered as Mickey Mouse has ever bothered to show up and vote. It's not voter fraud, it's registration fraud. Big difference.
"For 230 years voters have not been required to provide identification to vote."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111106203550AArj8UA
the SC voter ID law does zip to prevent registration and election officials' fraud...
SDR
3:28 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
How could voter fraud be proved?
Sammy
12:40 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
How easy would it be for a person to get a dead relatives voter registration card and go vote? Or for that matter, go vote for a living relative if the relative was ill or just did not want to vote? What is wrong with wanting people to show a picture ID? How is it in any way discrimination?
It was estimated that 10% of the people who registrated to vote in Illinois in 1982 were dead.
Eleanor
3:28 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
A major problem is that it is so difficult to get to the location to obtain the ID. There is only one place per county and there is no public transportation. If SC had decided to have a van go around to various locations (churches, schools, post offices, etc.) to make it possible for citizens without driver's licenses to get to the locations, the law would not be quite as unfortunate.
stanley seigler
1:39 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@Sammy: "...my mother telling me how many dead people had voted in an election."
anecdotal evidence (especially by a mother) is, sometimes, more reliable than scientific proof...but stuff i found "googleing" does not support significant individual voter fraud at a polling place...eg;
"...the State of Indiana again fail to justify Indiana’s photo ID law. They recite various examples of problems that the challenged law would not solve [ditto SC]. http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/pdf/CrawfordAllegations.pdf
re: It was estimated that 10% of the people who "registrated" to vote in Illinois in 1982 were dead.
estimated by who/whom...link pls...and it's not voter fraud, it's registration fraud. big difference.
re: What is wrong with wanting people to show a picture ID?
same thing that was wrong with poll tax and jim crow laws...repeating:
"According to the state’s [SC] statistics, there are 81,938 (likely BO voters) minority citizens who are already registered to vote and who lack DMV-issued identification..."
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/dec/24/obama-administration-challenges-south-carolina/
"...voter fraud is already exceptionally rare. The South Carolina State Election Commission told the New York Times that it knows of no confirmed cases of voter identification fraud..."
http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/speakout/are-new-voting-laws-necessary-or-discriminatory
stanley seigler
2:00 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
repeat from PATCH; "Justice Department: SC Voter ID Law Discriminatory" thread.
Brennan Center for Justice NYU School of Law...Policy Brief on the Truth About Voter Fraud...Download the PDF http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/documents/policy_brief_voter_fraud.html
Summary
*Fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare.
*Many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or do not demonstrate fraud. [anyone have SC examples]
*Voter fraud is often conflated with other forms of election misconduct.
*Raising the unsubstantiated specter of mass voter fraud suits a particular policy agenda. [eg, disenfranchise BO voters]
*Claims of voter fraud should be carefully tested before they become the basis for action.
Eleanor
3:16 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
The real problem in South Carolina is that over two thousand votes were miscounted in the 2010 General Election. Richland County failed to count 1,127 votes and Colleton County had over 1,300 more votes than voters.
Fix the problem with the voting machines!
Eleanor
3:22 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
The big problem with the South Carolina voter photo ID law is that citizens without driver's licenses have to get to the elections office of their own county to obtain the ID. In Pickens County, that means getting to a hillside outside Pickens -- a location where there is NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. A citizen without a driver's license in my town would need someone to drive them on this 40-mile round trip.
stanley seigler
4:21 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@Eleanor: "The real problem in South Carolina is that over two thousand votes were miscounted..etc."
the real problem is this is another example of political "sound and fury, signifying nothing"...there is NO significant fraud by indiviuals at the polling pace...which is what the law addresses...
well it does signify the extent BO HATERS will go to disenfranchise BO voters...
but BO aside...legislators' time better spent addressing real issues such as those eleanor points out...and voting machine problems...eg,
repeating: "Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education..." http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/
SDR
4:46 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
How could you prove voter fraud?
stanley seigler
6:08 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@sdr: How could voter fraud be proved?
one way...dead people cant vote...so cross check registered voters (must be registerted to vote) vs recorded deaths in a precinct...computers make this a simple search...would guess this has been (should have been) done and no fraud found...ie;
The South Carolina State Election Commission told the New York Times that it knows of no confirmed cases of voter identification fraud..."
Ms. R. G. Davis, PhD Candidate
5:14 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
The interest stated by the Republican Party, (Attorney General Grooms), and Governor Nicky Haley that a 2nd picture voter identification is needed to vote is unfounded, very extreme, and unnecessary. These are just some of the truths: The poll managers need year round training. As a Poll Clerk while working at Hanahan Precinct 1, I over heard the white adult female and male poll managers telling voters as they approached the table that they will vote in the Republican Primary. I revisited the incident, but the individuals continued through the entired shift. I reported that behavior and got black balled from working as a clerk. I have since returned, but now a clerk has to be in charge of 3 precincts for13 hours, which I refused to do after the 1st time. These and more issues are to be concerns to Governor Haley, Attorney General Grooms, and all Republicans.
stanley seigler
6:21 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@Ms. R. G. Davis, PhD Candidate: The interest stated by the Republican Party, (Attorney General Grooms), and Governor Nicky Haley that a 2nd picture voter identification is needed to vote is unfounded, very extreme, and unnecessary...
COMMENT
tho not impressed by PhDs who introduce themselves as dr X...and those who publish they are PhD candidates...do agree with opine: "picture voter identification is needed to vote is unfounded, very extreme, and unnecessary..." ... aka;
stupidity...we have to find a cure...
Jonathan Allen
6:51 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
@Ms. R. G. Davis, just a quick clarification, Larry Grooms is a state senator, and a chief sponsor of the S.C. Voter ID law. He is quoted as a source in the story because he has been instrumental in passing the law and is a major supporter of it. Alan Wilson is South Carolina's Attorney General, though he was not available to speak with Patch while we were compiling this story, we did speak with a spokesman from Wilson's office (Mark Plowden - who is quoted in the fourth paragraph of the story saying the Attorney General's office will pursue all legal avenues to fight the DOJ decision). It will be up to Wilson's office to decide whether to pursue an appeal of the Department of Justice decision. I hope this clears up any confusion about the role Sen. Grooms is playing in this issue.