News analysis by Bill Davis, senior editor | National momentum swinging against various voter identification laws across the country probably won’t be forceful enough to strike down South Carolina’s stripped-down version, analysts say.
Over the last month, five states — Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin, North Dakota and North Carolina — saw their voter I.D. laws struck down by federal courts. Federal appeals cases in North Carolina, like South Carolina, go to Richmond, Va., to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered by many experts as the nation’s most conservative district.
In the North Carolina case, the court found that the state asked for race-based data in its legislative preparation and enacted a bill that “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
And perhaps more problematic for supporters of voter I.D. legislation, the appellate court found the North Carolina version imposed “cures for problems that did not exist.” The push for the voter I.D. law in North Carolina intensified after President Barack Obama won North Carolina in his first election on his way to becoming the country’s first non-white president.
One of the linchpin arguments for the creation of voter I.D. bills nationally has been protecting the sanctity of elections and democracy from rampant voter fraud. Problem is, voter fraud has not yet been proven to be widespread, causing critics to claim that racism is the underlying taproot for voter I.D. support.
S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson in 2012 stated, when this the Palmetto State’s version of the measure was being drafted, that there had been close to 1,000 cases of “zombie” voters – deceased people’s identities being used by others in voting booths. That number was whittled down mightily later, as it turned out the troublesome votes were spread over a large host of elections and that non-zombie clerical errors were the primary culprit, not voter fraud.
So, does that mean South Carolina’s voter ID law may be the next to fall?
Probably not, according to everyone from the Wilson to the ACLU and the state chapter of the League of Women Voters — and for a variety of reasons.
Wilson apparently believes South Carolina’s law is battle-tested.
According to a statement released this week from Wilson’s office: “A federal court has already upheld South Carolina’s Voter I.D. law and it has since been implemented effectively. The Attorney General’s office successfully defended our law in 2012 as it was passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley. Our law remains valid and in effect.”
Lynn Teague, vice president of issues and actions for the state League, said that what South Carolina doesn’t have in its version, compared to the other states, will likely insulate it from similar rulings by the 4th Circuit.
Teague, whose organization challenged Wilson and the state in 2012 in court over the law, said North Carolina’s law was struck down because it targeted issues like same-day voter registration, something South Carolina didn’t have in the first place. “We barely have a month-out registration,” snarked Teague.
North Carolina’s voter ID law also abolished Sunday voting, Teague said. That practice had been a cultural rallying point at black churches where parishioners would gather after services and in a more organized way head off to polls to cast their ballots. South Carolina never allowed Sunday voting.
Teague added that since South Carolina is no longer required to vet any election law changes with the federal government after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a portion of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act of 1967 three years ago, there needs to be proof of discrimination before the feds get involved.
And that’s a big problem, according to Susan Dunn, staff attorney for the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Brett Bursey, executive director of the S.C. Progressive Network.
Bursey and Dunn both say it’s difficult to get to the data needed to determine whether South Carolina’s voter ID law has negatively impacted voting patterns, especially among minorities.
Bursey blames, in part, South Carolina’s quirky constitution, which diffused voting control among counties. “People need to be worried that, when it comes to democracy, no one is in charge in South Carolina,” said Bursey, a longtime political activist.
Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the S.C. State Election Commission, disagreed. While he ceded the point that counties were not required to turn over specific voting data to Columbia, roughly 75 percent did. “And with that many counties reporting, I think we have a statistically valid view of what’s going on in South Carolina,” said Whitmire.
One of the key concerns the ACLU’s Dunn still has is how long the state will remain flexible with provisional ballots. Under the current state law, voters are allowed some latitude in casting ballots which later may be challenged due reasons ranging from not having brought approved identification to filing early because of health reasons.
After reviewing records that she can access, Dunn said that so far the state has been flexible and given the benefit of the doubt to the voter. “But how long will that last?” she asked.
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