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Legislative Intent Service, Inc. News & Notes

Some bill research does not include the Governor's file because at the time we researched the bill, the sitting Governor had not released his chaptered bill file. If the Governor's file is not included with this particular research, please contact our office (1-530-666-1917 or quote@legintent.com) and we will be happy to provide this file at no charge if it is available. Please Note: Governor files did not exist prior to 1943.

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NEWS AND NOTES

 Election Voter ID Laws:  From 2011 through 2012, voter ID legislation was a very popular topic in state legislatures. Prior to 2006, no state required a voter to produce an ID as a condition for voting.  In 2006, Indiana was the first state to enact a strict photo ID law, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld. Since then, thirty-three states have enacted varying degrees of voter ID laws – some strict and some not-so-strict and some implemented and some not-yet-implemented. The types of ID required appears to vary, with some states requiring a government-issued photo ID while other states would be satisfied with a utility bill or bank statement.  In some cases, such as Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, their new voter ID laws are not yet implemented so each state’s older voter ID law remains in effect. 

 Here is a breakdown of the states and their voter ID laws:

  • Strict Photo ID in effect in 2012:  Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee
  • Strict Photo ID not in effect in 2012:  Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin
  • Photo ID in effect in 2012:  Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Dakota
  • Photo ID not in effect in 2012:  Alabama
  • Strict Non-Photo ID in effect 2012: Arizona, Ohio, Firginia
  • Non-Strict Non-Photo ID in effect in 2012:  Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington

Challenges to the Voter ID Laws:  The Justice Department has become involved in some of these cases because Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires states with a history of discrimination to receive preclearance before making changes to their voting laws.  States affected this year were Texas and South Carolina, each passing strict photo ID laws in 2011 which were not pre-cleared by the Department, with the current result that Texas’ voter ID law has been blocked by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, while South Carolina’s received judicial preclearance because of a finding that the South Carolina law satisfied Section 5, but could not take effect until 2013.  Other states’ voter ID laws, such as Pennsylvania, were challenged by various individuals and organizations.  The judge in the Pennsylvania case was not convinced that voters yet to obtain photo ID would not be disenfranchised because of the new law, so he blocked it from taking effect but only for the upcoming November 6 election.  In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court declined to take up the lower court’s orders blocking Wisconsin’s voter ID law.  Wisconsin’s high court will hear this case sometime after the November 2012 election. 

California’s Voter ID Law:  In § 20107 of Title 2 of the California Code of Regulations, the standards for proof of residency or identity when proof is required by the “Help America Vote Act” includes a provision that states this “section shall be liberally construed to permit voters and new registrants to cast a regular ballot.  Any doubt as to the sufficiency of proof or a document presented shall be resolved in favor of permitting the voter or new registrant to cast a regular ballot.”  According to the state’s Secretary of State website, the requirement of having to show ID applies to voters who have never voted in the county in a federal election.  Persons who were already registered as of January 1, 2003 or who change address within the county and re-register, are not required to show ID to vote.

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