Politics
Election 2012:Tough new election laws blocked or delayed
For the future, the three federal judges in the South Carolina photo ID case provided a roadmap for an acceptable law. The key, they said, was that South Carolina will expand the types of acceptable forms of identification, provide a convenient way for people to get a free ID and allow those without ID to still cast ballots as long as they write an affidavit stating why.
The Texas law that was declared invalid, on the other hand, would have required many voters to present a birth certificate when registering, did not have convenient ways for people to obtain IDs in many counties and had no provision for voters to cast ballots without a photo ID.
“At first blush, one might have thought South Carolina had enacted a very strict photo ID law,” the judges wrote. “Much of the initial rhetoric surrounding the law suggested as much. But that rhetoric was based on a misunderstanding of how the law would work.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
