A Pulaski County circuit judge reaffirmed on Friday his decision that the law requiring voters to show government- or college-issued photographic IDs for their ballots to count was unconstitutional.

Judge Tim Fox granted a preliminary injunction against the state’s new voter-identification requirements during an hour-long hearing Friday in a case filed by the ACLU on behalf of four Pulaski County voters.

But Fox stayed that decision, saying the state’s 75 county election commissions wouldn’t have enough time to implement any changes before early voting for the May 20 primary elections begins Monday.

“I’m presented with a problem, y’all,” he said, adding that the state has to have “some consistency” in carrying out the law. “I just don’t know how we can have an effective election process for the primary if we throw everything into some maelstrom.”

Fox’s decision will leave in place the voter-identification requirements for the primaries. The law has been applied to two regional elections but never a statewide contest.

Jeff Priebe, the attorney working on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Arkansas Public Law Center, said he remained confident the voter-identification law wouldn’t stand.

“It’s clear the court had many concerns about [the law’s] unconstitutionality on its face,” he said after the hearing. “We respect the court’s concerns, but we can’t lose sight of the fact it ruled [the law is] on its face unconstitutional. The court’s concerns about voters is first and foremost.”

Secretary of State Mark Martin said in a statement that he was pleased the requirements would still be in place “so that it won’t create confusion.”

“I look forward to seeing what the final ruling will be, as litigation continues,” he said in the statement.

Last week, Fox quashed the identification law in a separate suit involving absentee voters. He said the Legislature didn’t have the necessary two-thirds majority in both houses, required by the Arkansas Constitution, despite having voted twice to pass the law to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto.

The absentee-voter suit also was where Fox first ruled the voter-ID law unconstitutional.

That suit is before the state’s highest court, which on Tuesday stayed Fox’s decision and allowed the state to temporarily move forward with the identification requirements.

‘IRREPARABLE HARM’

Three of the four plaintiffs in Friday’s suit said they couldn’t obtain suitable identification to vote because they didn’t have birth certificates and couldn’t get them without considerable effort or expense. The fourth plaintiff, a former county poll worker, has identification but refuses to show it in protest of the law.

During the hearing Friday, Priebe contended the voters would suffer “irreparable harm” if they can’t cast ballots because they don’t have the required identification. In carrying out the voter-identification law, election commissions would impede those votes from being counted, he argued.

Priebe pointed to other states where voter-identification laws have been rescinded - this week, a federal judge in Wisconsin struck down a similar law, and a Pennsylvania judge backed his quashing of a similar law there. Thirty-one states have some form of a voter-identification law; however, only eight states - including Arkansas - require a photo ID to be shown, according to The Associated Press.

The voter-identification law is a “state law issue” to be determined by Arkansas’ courts and constitution, Fox said.

The state’s attorneys contended the new identification requirements are “more lax than the federal standard.” The state wants to get “as many people to vote as they” can but also wants to add more security in the process, state attorney A.J. Kelly said.

Fox said: “I don’t think anyone could say that reducing voter fraud is not a legitimate goal of our Legislature and our society. For whatever reason politically this has passed, I don’t even see that as part of the equation.”

The identification law forces voters to show photographic identification that wasn’t required when they registered to vote, Fox said. The election process as a whole would suffer irreparable harm if one person’s vote didn’t count, he added.

Also Friday, Fox refused to recuse from the lawsuit, saying he couldn’t find any rules in the Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct that would prohibit him from presiding over the case. Martin’s office asked Fox to remove himself from the suit because the two were co-defendants in a separate lawsuit, now on appeal to the state Supreme Court, involving the judge’s candidacy for re-election.

Fox did not make a ruling on pending motions that could force the plaintiffs to give depositions and respond to all of the state’s questions and requests for documents, including any detailing the plaintiffs’ taxes and use of public assistance.

No one testified during the hearing, but Fox said he would allow attorneys to return to court for testimony before possible primary runoffs..

Pulaski County Election Commissioner Chris Burks, a Democrat, said he was disappointed that Fox stayed the injunction.

“All counties were ready to go either way,” he said, adding that he wanted “clear guidance” from the courts.

ABSENTEE-VOTING BRIEFS

Also Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court accepted briefs until noon on the absentee-voting suit. The parties in the case asked the court to consider the appeal quickly because early voting was drawing near.

The lawsuit in that case, filed by the Pulaski County Election Commission on March 12, originally only targeted two rules adopted by the state Board of Election Commissioners, which gave absentee voters who did not present proper identification along with their ballots a “cure period” to submit proper ID after the election.

Voters who appear in person can submit identification after the election to ensure their ballots are counted, but that opportunity wasn’t provided to absentee voters under the identification law.

Senior Assistant Attorney General C. Joseph Cordi Jr. wrote in court filings that Fox should not have ruled on the constitutionality of the voter-identification law because no one raised that issue in the case. Cordi added that the law is constitutional because it does not add another “qualification” to become a registered voter beyond what is stated under the state constitution Article 3 Section 1 and that it doesn’t impair the right to vote.

In a separate filing, attorneys George Ritter and Bilenda Harris-Ritter wrote on behalf of Doyle Webb, the chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas, that the board had the authority to adopt regulations creating the cure period.

“The state board has been delegated not only to implement, but also to interpret the law and fill in gaps in statutory law involving the orderly conduct of elections in the state of Arkansas,” the attorneys wrote.

Pulaski County Attorney Karla Burnett argued in the county Election Commission’s filing that the lower court was correct in ruling that the law was unconstitutional and asked the Supreme Court to affirm the decision. Burnett also wrote that the board acted outside its authority when it adopted the cure period rules.

“While the [board] undoubtedly has the authority to ‘formulate, adopt, and promulgate all necessary rules to assure even and consistent application of voter registration laws and fair and orderly election procedures,” that authority must be exercised within the confines of the existing state law. It does not grant the [board] the authority to amend or supersede state statutes,” Burnett wrote.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/03/2014