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African American News
"ACLU Condemns U.S. Justice Department Decision to Approve Georgia Photo ID Law"
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Decision Will Discriminate Against Minority Voters and is Called “Highly Partisan”
ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union sharply criticized today’s decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to approve a new Georgia law that voting rights advocates say will discriminate against minority voters. The measure, H.B. 244, which was passed on March 31 and signed by Governor Sonny Perdue in April, reduces the various forms of identification that voters can use from 17 to six, and makes state-issued photo identification absolutely required in order to vote.
“This decision is extremely disturbing because H.B. 244, which will undoubtedly make minority voters worse off, is exactly the kind of law that the Voting Rights Act was designed to block,” said Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project in Atlanta.
“It is quite alarming to see such obvious political partisanship impact what should be a fair and impartial decision-making process at the Department of Justice. Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that the Republican-controlled Department of Justice would defer to a Republican-backed measure that will certainly suppress minority voters, the majority of whom vote Democrat,” said McDonald who also cited the fact that the entire Georgia Legislative Black Caucus staged a public walkout in opposition to the measure.
According to the Voting Rights Project, which has brought more than 300 suits to enforce minority voting rights since 1980, the Voting Rights Act requires that any changes to election laws in nine states, including Georgia, as well as portions of seven others, receive clearance from federal officials before going into effect. Department of Justice officials waited until late Friday afternoon to issue their decision giving the green light to the Georgia law.
“If this law is implemented, Georgia will have the most draconian voter identification requirement in the nation," said McDonald. “This isn’t the end of the issue. We and others certainly intend to challenge this decision in court under state and federal law.”
In numerous formal letters sent to the Department of Justice in recent weeks, dozens of civil rights, religious, labor and advocacy groups, including prominent legal scholars and other experts in voting law, had urged the Department of Justice to block implementation of the measure citing various data that they say shows the racially discriminatory impact of H.B. 244.
Copies of this correspondence can be found at: http://www.votingrights.org/resources/
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