Federal appeals court upholds Alabama’s photo voter ID law

A federal appeals court has upheld Alabama’s photo voter ID law, affirming a lower court’s ruling in favor of Secretary of State John Merrill and against advocacy groups who claimed the law discriminates against Black voters.

One judge on the three-judge panel disagreed.

The law has been in effect since 2014. Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, along with four individual voters, filed the lawsuit in 2015.

In 2018, U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler dismissed the case, granting Merrill’s motion for summary judgment, or a ruling without a full trial. The plaintiffs appealed. Today’s ruling upheld Coogler’s decision.

“The burden of providing a photo ID … in order to vote is a minimal burden on Alabama’s voters -- especially when Alabama accepts so many different forms of photo ID and makes acquiring one simple and free for voters who lack a valid ID but wish to obtain one,” Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch wrote in the majority opinion. “The Alabama voter ID law does not violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution, nor does it violate the Voting Rights Act.”

Branch noted that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s photo voter ID law in 2008.

Circuit Judge Ed Carnes concurred.

District Court Judge Darrin P. Gayles of the Southern District of Florida, designated as the third judge on the panel, dissented. Gayles found the motion for summary judgment was not justified.

“I find that there are genuine issues of material fact as to both the discriminatory purpose and impact of Alabama’s Photo ID Law such that summary judgment should not have been granted,” Gayles wrote.

Merrill called the decision a win for election security and integrity.

“Photo ID is required when purchasing alcohol or tobacco products, operating a motor vehicle, checking into a flight, purchasing a gun, or booking a hotel,” he said in a press release. “Voting is equally or more important than all of these other examples where a photo ID is required.”

Attorney General Steve Marshall also applauded the decision.

“Opponents have repeatedly argued that Alabama’s voter ID law’s requirement that a voter must provide a photo ID is overly burdensome,” Marshall said. “As I have previously stated, Alabama’s voter identification law, by both design and practice, is easily satisfied, and it contains procedures to allow anyone who does not have a photo ID to obtain one. The appeals court in its opinion agreed.”

Alabama photo voter ID law ... by Mike Cason on Scribd

https://www.al.com/news/2020/07/federal-appeals-court-upholds-alabamas-photo-voter-id-law.html