Justices urged to bury ID law

Voter plaintiffs: Ratify Fox ruling

The plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the state's voter-identification law asked the Arkansas Supreme Court on Monday to uphold a lower court's ruling that found the new law unconstitutional.

In filings with the court, Little Rock lawyers Deborah Riordan and Jeff Priebe wrote that Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox was correct in finding that Act 595 of 2013 unconstitutionally imposed an additional qualification to vote. Fox also issued a preliminary injunction against enforcing the law, which requires voters to present a government-approved photo ID for their ballots to be counted, but he stayed the injunction pending appeal.

Riordan and Priebe filed the documents on behalf of the Arkansas Civil Liberties Union and the Arkansas Public Law Center, a group that pursues cases "that raise issues of broad public importance," according to its website.

The attorneys argued that the law, pushed by Republicans, created a "proof of identity" qualification in violation of the state constitution's Article 3, Sections 1 and 2, which provides for free and equal elections for eligible voters. The new law was a "sea change for Arkansas voters," they wrote.

Act 595 of 2013 was approved by both chambers -- largely along party lines -- in March of that year and vetoed by Gov. Mike Beebe later that month. The Legislature overrode the governor's veto, and the measure took effect Jan. 1.

Supporters of the measure argued that its passage would reduce voter fraud. Critics, including the governor, said it was unconstitutional and placed an undue burden on voters.

Thirty-four states have some form of voter ID law on the books, but three of those are not in effect after legal challenges, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Arkansas is one of eight states that require a photo ID before a ballot can be counted.

On April 16, the plaintiffs -- Freedom Kohls, Toylanda Smith, Joe Flakes and Barry Haas of Pulaski County -- filed the lawsuit, asking the court to block enforcement of the law.

Fox ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that the law's requirement to provide proof of identity placed an additional qualification on voting in violation of the Arkansas Constitution. The judge also found that the Legislature did not pass the law with the required two-thirds vote to amend the constitution.

The state filed an appeal to the high court on behalf of Secretary of State Mark Martin and the state Board of Election Commissioners.

In filings with the court last month, Assistant Attorneys General Joe Cordi and David Curran argued that Fox did not use the correct standard to evaluate the law. They wrote that "there is a strong presumption that every statute is constitutional" and that the courts must find a law to be constitutional "if it is at all possible to do so."

Under that standard, Fox would have found the law presented a legal "procedural requirement" to confirm a voter's identity, the state's attorneys wrote.

Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said in an email Monday that "we are currently reviewing the pleadings and will respond in due course."

Three amicus curiae -- or friend of the court -- briefs were filed along with the plaintiffs' brief on Monday:

The Pulaski County attorney's office reiterated the plaintiffs' arguments about the unconstitutionality of the law and added that county clerks should not have been named as parties in the lawsuit because they must follow the rules set by the Board of Election Commissioners and the secretary of state.

A group of political science and law professors filed a separate brief that argued that the law put a burden on voters and that the state has a "history of zealously guarding against legislative overreach, both in the area of voting and more generally." That filing included John DiPippa, dean emeritus and a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's W.H. Bowen School of Law.

More than a dozen other groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas, filed the third brief, which argued that the new law was discriminatory. The group wrote that voters who do not have IDs "must overcome both the inaccessibility of the photo voter ID card-issuing offices of the county clerks and the money, time, and inconvenience costs of obtaining a photo ID" in order to vote.

The secretary of state's office set aside about $300,000 to provide photo ID cards to people who did not have one and did not have the money or resources to obtain them. The office purchased 98 machines to create the cards and distributed them among the state's 75 counties.

Voters who do not present a valid photo ID when they vote can cast a provisional ballot and return by noon on the Monday after the election to the county Board of Election Commissioners or the county clerk to show the proper identification. There is no such "cure" period for a person who does not present a valid ID when voting absentee.

The state Board of Election Commissioners passed a series of rules to extend the "cure" period for voting-day voters to absentees, but those were struck down by Fox in a separate lawsuit. Fox found that the election commissioners did not have the authority to make the rules.

Less than a week before the May primary elections, the state Supreme Court upheld that ruling by Fox.

During the May primary -- the first large-scale test of the law -- 1,036 ballots, nearly one-sixth of the absentee votes cast, were tossed out, according to numbers provided by county election officials.

Metro on 08/12/2014

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