Justices stay blow to voter-ID law

The Arkansas Supreme Court granted a temporary stay Tuesday on a circuit judge’s ruling that the law requiring voters to show government- or college-issued photographic IDs for their ballots to count was unconstitutional.

That stay allows the state to move forward with the voter-identification law until the state’s highest court makes a ruling.

But also Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied a stay on Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s ruling that struck down the state’s absentee-voting rules. The court made the decision “based on the record and facts of the instant case.”

The high-court order, which also states that all parties must have briefs in no later than noon Friday, came after an appeal of Fox’s rulings by state and Republican Party attorneys.

Last week, Fox quashed the identification law, saying the Legislature didn’t pass it with the two-thirds majority required in both houses by the state’s constitution. Legislators never garnered that majority even after voting twice to pass the law to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto. Fox’s decision came after a suit by the Pulaski County Election Commission challenging absentee-voting rules.

The law has been applied to two regional elections but never a statewide one. Early voting for the May 20 primary election begins Monday.

Mark Myers, director of strategic initiatives for Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office, said that while they’re pleased with Tuesday’s order, “we look forward to the actual hearing.”

As Martin’s office prepares for the election, “we continue to advertise the requirement for voters to show their picture ID for election day,” he said, adding that the court’s order “seems to indicate that folks will have to show their IDs when early voting starts.”

Pulaski County Election Commissioner Chris Burks said in an email that he was “proud of the Pulaski County Election Commission for doing what was right. The Pulaski County action forced the Court to reach the legal issues involved and strike down the voter ID law.”

But Burks said in an interview later Tuesday that the decision promoted confusion, since the highest court put back into place the voter-ID law.

“There’s still a void,” Burks said of the court upholding - for now - Fox’s ruling striking down the absentee-voting regulations. “[The voter-ID law] disenfranchises that voter. There’s no remedy for that voter. I think that’s an unfair outcome.”

The Pulaski County Election Commission and the county clerk sued the state to challenge the legality of rules for absentee voters written by the state Board of Election Commissioners, which was advised by Martin.

If absentee voters forget to include a copy of their ID with their ballot, the identification law doesn’t give them an opportunity to submit the legally required identification materials after the election. The board’s rules would have given those voters time after the election to produce a valid ID.

The county commission contended that the state board exceeded its regulating authority by enacting those absentee rules.

Voters who appear in person have a few days to submit identification after the election to ensure that their ballots are counted. Those who submit a ballot without ID and don’t take advantage of the post election opportunity to show ID could face criminal fraud charges.

Before the order Tuesday, the county commission urged the high court to block the state from rolling out the identification law. The commission, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, asked the Supreme Court to deny the state’s request for an emergency stay on Fox’s ruling.

“The public interest in the case is served by refusal of the stay,” the commission’s response stated. “This will protect the voters’ rights to cast a ballot as they have for the past 15 years without requiring the presentation of identification. The integrity of the election will not be affected at all if it is conducted in the same manner as the preceding 15 years.”

The Supreme Court order Tuesday also denied the ACLU’s request to intervene in this case.

In a separate lawsuit filed just eight days before Fox’s ruling, the ACLU and Arkansas Public Law Center sued the state, challenging the constitutionality of the entire law on behalf of four Pulaski County voters.

Three of the four plaintiffs said they couldn’t get suitable identification because they didn’t have birth certificates and couldn’t get them without considerable effort or expense. The fourth plaintiff, a former county poll worker, has identification but refused to show it in order to protest the law.

On Monday, Martin’s office explained its requests to determine whether the four plaintiffs in that lawsuit have ever received public assistance. Martin’s office argued that people applying for government assistance “often must prove their identity” before receiving any services.

Martin’s office sent subpoenas to the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services. His office had already submitted a proposed subpoena for the Department of Finance and Administration for motor vehicle records.

While the plaintiffs had privacy concerns about those records, Martin’s office worked with attorneys to allay them, according to the state’s response Monday.

The state also submitted a motion to compel the four voters to appear for depositions and respond to all of the state’s questions and requests for documents. Martin has also asked Fox to recuse himself from the suit because the two were co-defendants in a lawsuit now on appeal to the Supreme Court involving Fox’s candidacy for re-election.

Jeff Priebe, the attorney working on behalf of the ACLU and the Arkansas Public Law Center, said Tuesday that he didn’t believe Martin “provided any type of justification for trying to pry into the plaintiffs’ personal lives.”

The parties are scheduled to appear in Fox’s court Friday for a preliminary injunction hearing. Priebe said he will be asking the circuit court to enjoin the proof of ID qualifications in the new voting law.

Rita Sklar, the ACLU’s executive director, said she was confident the highest court will rule the identification law unconstitutional.

“We think it was more the facts of the case before them rather than the law itself,” she said of Tuesday’s order. “Our case is different. Our case revolves around four voters and striking the entire law. [The other case] was more of an abstract challenge, and ours involves specific people who are going to lose their rights.”

The timing of the Supreme Court’s and Fox’s decisions will determine what rules to follow when early voting starts Monday, Burks said.

“We have a plan A and a plan B,” he said. “Plan A is to follow [the voter ID law] because it’s currently the law of the land. We’re training our people on that. Plan B is - if Fox issues another ruling and the Supreme Court doesn’t stay that - to follow the rule before the 2013 law.”