After a federal appeals court refused to reconsider its decision to forbid Arizona from implementing voter identification requirements until further notice, Attorney General Terry Goddard will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the rules to be used in the general election.
On Oct. 5, Judges A. Wallace Tashima and Betty Binns Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted an injunction against the regulations filed by attorneys for the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and a host of other minority and civil rights groups.
The groups allege the identification requirements hamper voter registration drives and place needless hardship on the poor, the elderly, and minorities because the requirement of government photo identification such as a driver’s license amounts to a “poll tax.”
(Poll taxes enacted in Southern states in the late 1880s had the effect of disenfranchising blacks and poor whites, because payment of the tax was a prerequisite for voting. In 1964 the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution disallowed the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections.)
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, election officials were also permitted to accept other forms of identification such as current utility and telephone bills, vehicle registration and current bank or credit union statements.
The attorney general action is expected to be filed with the nation’s highest court by Oct. 13, said spokeswoman Andrea Esquer.
Brewer concerned that judges ‘overturn the will’ of the voters
Secretary of State Jan Brewer expressed dismay last week over the court’s decision to stop the identification provisions passed by Arizona voters in 2004.
“I’m very concerned that two judges in San Francisco would overturn the will of a million voters,” she told the Arizona Capitol Times.
The requirements have survived numerous challenges in federal court, most recently a pre-primary Sept. 11 test before Judge Roslyn Silver in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.
The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona is joined in the litigation by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, League of United Latin American Citizens, Arizona Advocacy Network, Arizona Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican-American Legal and Educational Fund.
The U.S. Court of Appeals issued no written opinion on Oct. 5, but stated the identification requirements would not be implemented until the court issues a ruling on the appeal presented by the critics of the necessity of voter identification.
David Rosenbaum, a local attorney involved with the suit against Prop 200’s effects on voting and voting registration, said that a ruling before the November general election would be “very unlikely.”