Georgia’s voter ID law upheld in federal appeals court ruling

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday upheld Georgia’s voter identification law, saying the burden of presenting a government-issued photo ID at the polls is trumped by the need to safeguard the integrity of elections.

“The insignificant burden imposed by the Georgia statute is outweighed by the interests in detecting and deterring voter fraud,” Judge Bill Pryor wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision dismisses a lawsuit filed by two elderly voters, one in Rome and another in Screven County, the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

The law has been assailed by Democratic lawmakers as a Republican ploy to suppress minority voting. But GOP lawmakers say it is needed to prevent voter fraud.

In 2006, the General Assembly approved a revised version of the law almost entirely along party lines, with Republicans voting for it and Democrats in opposition.

On Wednesday, the 11th Circuit relied heavily on a U.S. Supreme Court decision last April upholding a similar voter ID law in Indiana.

In that ruling, the high court stated, “There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the state’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters.”

In the Georgia lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the state was never forced to prove that in-person voter fraud existed and that requiring a photo ID would solve such a problem.

But Pryor wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court did not require Indiana to prove specific instances of voter fraud. “We decline to impose that burden on Georgia,” he wrote.

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, a supporter of the law, praised the ruling.

“In the 2008 general election and general runoff alone,” she said, “over 5 million ballots were cast in person by voters with photo ID. I applaud this latest confirmation of Georgia’s common-sense photo ID requirement.”