A Stitch in Haste

I have expressed my support previously for voter ID laws generally, and Georgia's controversial new law specifically. My thesis is simple: It's not about "making every vote count," but about making every valid vote count." Voter ID laws help to ensure the latter.

There might be perfectly valid reasons to oppose Georgia's voter ID law or its counterparts in other states. But claiming that requiring a photo ID is "an unconstitutional poll tax" is not one of them:

A federal judge Tuesday blocked Georgia from enforcing a new state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

In issuing the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy said the law amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax because the state is not doing enough to make ID cards available to those who cannot afford them.

The requirement "is most likely to prevent Georgia's elderly, poor and African-American voters from voting," Murphy wrote. "For those citizens, the character and magnitude of their injury — the loss of their right to vote — is undeniably demoralizing and extreme."

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment prohibits "poll taxes." But what can a "poll tax" possibly mean but "a tax at the poll" — an admission fee that all people must pay to access the ballot box? An expense that some people may have to pay is by any sane definition not a "tax." If it is not a tax, then it is not unconstitutional.

Incidentally, we're talking about a card only necessary for those who don't already have a drivers license, passport or other valid ID. At it costs only $35 and is valid for ten years. And the fee is automatically waived for anyone who merely asserts, without any verification required, that they are "indigent."

Again, if this can be construed as a "tax," then so can anything.

One more thing: the Justice Department has signed off on the law as not racially motivated or discriminatory.

I never use the term "activist judge," but the jurist in this case comes mighty close.

If you play fast and loose with words, especially words like "tax," it makes consistent implementation of policy, (not to mention statutory and constitutional interpretation) difficult if not impossible. There is no basis whatsoever for using anything other than the plain language of the Constitution and reading "poll tax" as "a tax at the poll."

The judge erred on the law and should be overturned on appeal.

More thoughts at Brainlock.