Justice Department approves Georgia’s voter ID law

The decision, written by John Tanner, chief of the department’s voting section, says that while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales doesn’t object to the law, approval doesn’t preclude lawsuits against it.

“It’s not over yet. We will pursue litigation in federal court,” said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta and chairman of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which earlier filed an objection to the law with the Justice Department.

The Republican-backed measure sparked racial tensions during the legislative session last spring. Most of Georgia’s black lawmakers walked out at the state Capitol when it was approved.

Democrats had argued the idea was a political move by the GOP to depress voting among minorities, the elderly and the poor — all traditional bases for Democrats. Its opponents also included the AARP, League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The measure wipes out several currently accepted forms of voter identification other than photo IDs, including the use of Social Security cards, birth certificates or utility bills at the polls.

“Requiring valid, photographic identification is a common sense step to ensure voter integrity and sound elections,” Gov. Sonny Perdue said Friday in a written statement.

Perdue signed the measure in April and it had been pending the federal approval. Under the Voting Rights Act, Georgia and other states with a history of suppressing minority voting must get the Justice Department’s permission to change their voting laws.

“I was naive enough to believe that it would not pass muster at the federal level. I thought it was so blantantly un-American,” said Joe Beasley, head of the regional office of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, which opposed the law.

“The decision to clear the measure now gives Georgia the most Draconian voter identification requirement in the nation,” said Daniel Levitas of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project in Atlanta.

Nineteen states require voters to show identification, but only five request photo ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Those states — Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and South Dakota — allow voters without a photo ID to use other forms of identification or sign an affidavit of identity.

Levitas said the Justice Department’s decision on the Georgia law will be challenged in both state and federal courts.

If those challenges fail, Beasley said efforts will focus on helping the poor, rural and elderly get photo IDs. “We’re not going to let it stop us,” he said.

On the night that the legislation was approved, black lawmakers stormed out of the Georgia House and Senate. Some sang a civil rights era protest song — “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” — so loudly that business had to be stopped. Later they held rallies across the state decrying the measure. The widow of Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, publicly called on Perdue to veto the bill.

Perdue, like other Republicans, have said the measure is aimed at preventing voter fraud, not hurting poor voters. The governor has pointed out that state IDs would be given free to people who couldn’t afford the fee or said they planned to use the ID to vote. “It will not be a hardship on any voter,” Perdue said when he signed the bill.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who was beaten during a civil rights march in Selma, Ala., called the move an outrage.

“It is unbelievable, it is unreal the Department of Justice — an agency who is supposed to protect the American public by enforcing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, is now involved in attempts to weaken the act,” Lewis said. “This decision takes us back to the dark past of literacy tests and other insidious devices that were carefully devised to hamper the participation of all of our citizens in the political process.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who heads the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said he also was disturbed by the decision.

“My fear is that this will spread across the country like a virus,” he said. “This just shows how the anti-civil rights’ machinery is in motion.”