Georgia high court hears photo ID law challenge

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia's law requiring voters to show a valid photo identification at the polls violates the state Constitution and does nothing to prevent voter fraud, a lawyer told the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Emmet Bondurant, who represents the state Democratic Party, asked the court to overturn a ruling earlier this year by a Fulton County judge who found the 2006 law to be an "evenhanded restriction" designed to protect the integrity of the voting process. Because voters can be turned away for not having a valid ID, the law violates the state Constitution, which states that only those who committed a serious felony or who have been found incompetent cannot cast a vote, he said.

But Mark Cohen, a lawyer for the state, countered that the Constitution allows the Legislature to set reasonable procedures for elections, such as passing a photo ID law to authenticate voters or setting hours when the polls are open. Since the photo ID law took effect, "not one Georgian has been located in all that time who was denied the right to vote," Cohen told the court.

The state high court will issue a ruling in the coming months. In early 2009, the federal appeals court in Atlanta upheld Georgia's photo ID law, dismissing a lawsuit that contended the act violated the U.S. Constitution.