U.S. blocks S.C. voter ID law

The U.S. Justice Department has blocked South Carolina’s controversial voter ID law, saying it would prevent black people from voting.

It was the first voter ID law to be refused by the federal agency in nearly 20 years.

The decision means voters will not have to show a Department of Motor Vehicles-issued driver’s license or photo ID card, a U.S. military ID or a U.S. passport. And it means the state, which says it plans to appeal the decision in court, will spend time and taxpayer dollars on the second such lawsuit during Gov. Nikki Haley’s term.

State Democrats pounced on the news – coupled with Thursday’s decision by a federal judge to strike down key provisions in South Carolina’s new immigration law – as proof that Haley, along with the state’s Republican majority, willingly flouts federal law for political purposes.

But Haley released a statement Friday taking pride in her defiance, saying she is trying to “move South Carolina forward, and whether it be illegal immigration reform, creating jobs despite the (National Labor Relations Board), or now Voter ID, the President and his administration are fighting us every step of the way.”

“It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th Amendment rights,” Haley said.

Democrats cheered the decision, however, with state Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, calling it “the best Christmas gift I have gotten in a long time.”

“It is a message to those that are the proponents to tell them to pause. Let’s don’t trample on people’s rights,” Malloy said. “There are hundreds of years gone into this process, and we don’t need to roll it back.”

It is the first time the federal government has blocked a state’s voter ID law since 1994, when the Justice Department objected to a Louisiana law that would have required first-time voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Three years later, Louisiana modified its law and the Justice Department approved it.

sSouth Carolina is one of eight states that have strict photo voter ID laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Of those, only South Carolina, Texas and Alabama needed to have their laws approved by the Justice Department to ensure they don’t discriminate against minority voters, as is required by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The objection to South Carolina’s law is the first time the Obama administration has intervened in a voter ID law. Texas is still going through its preclearance process, while Alabama has not yet applied for preclearance because its law does not go into effect until 2014.

But the U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld a similar strict photo voter ID law in Indiana, according to S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson. Because of that, Wilson said he plans to ask the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to overrule the Justice Department’s decision.

“Nothing in this act stops people from voting, and I think the court will rule in South Carolina’s favor,” Wilson said in a prepared statement.

Supporters of the law, including Haley, have said the purpose of South Carolina’s voter ID law is to prevent voter fraud, such as someone who lives in another state claiming to be a voter in South Carolina.

But in his letter to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez noted that “the state’s submission did not include any evidence or instance of either in-person voter impersonation or any other type of fraud that is not already addressed by the state’s existing voter identification requirement and that arguably could be deterred by requiring voters to present only photo identification at the polls.”

Perez also noted that South Carolina’s minority voters are “20 percent more likely to lack DMV-issued ID than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disenfranchised.”

Perez was using data from the S.C. Election Commission, which notes that 239,333 of South Carolina’s registered voters, or 8.9 percent, do not have DMV-issued IDs. The South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles this week disputed those numbers, noting that more than 200,000 of those voters either live in other states, have allowed their IDs to expire, have licenses with names that don’t match voter records or are dead, according to a report from the Associated Press.

But Perez said when the Justice Department questioned S.C. officials about these numbers, “the state did not provide any data whatsoever refuting the fact, demonstrated by the state’s earlier data, that minority registered voters are about 20 percent more likely than white registered voters to lack DMV-issued identification.”

Read the letter from the U.S. Attorney General's office below: