insightful column in the washington post by david j becker

Reviving Jim Crow?

Any day now the Justice Department will render
judgment on one of the single most discriminatory pieces of voting legislation
of recent years: a Georgia state law requiring voters to present
one of only six forms of photo identification before they can exercise their
right to vote. Before enforcing this statute, Georgia must get Justice
Department approval by proving that the law will not put minority voters in a
worse position than they were in before the requirement was instituted.
The
facts surrounding Georgia's voter identification requirement cannot be disputed.
Virtually every black legislator opposes the legislation, and most black
lawmakers staged a walkout to protest its passage. Every major civil rights and
minority advocacy group, including the NAACP, and many legal scholars, oppose
the restriction; several have submitted comments to the Justice Department for
consideration.
Additionally, it is surprisingly
difficult to obtain a photo ID in Georgia. Though the state has 159 counties,
there are only 56 places in which residents can obtain a driver's license, and
not one is within the city limits of Atlanta or within the six counties that
have the highest percentage of blacks.
There is also
considerable evidence that photo ID requirements have a disproportionately
negative impact on blacks and other minorities. The Justice Department found as
recently as a decade ago that blacks in Louisiana were four to five times less
likely than whites to have photo IDs.............

again, i'm not surprised this was proposed. let's keep our fingers crossed it does NOT pass.