Voting Rights: Lawyers seek to revive lawsuit over Georgia voter ID law

Civil rights lawyers are asking a three-judge federal panel to revive a lawsuit challenging Georgia's voter ID law. Attorney Emmet Bondurant asked the panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday to reconsider a 2007 ruling by a federal judge who dismissed a lawsuit on grounds it didn't impose a significant burden on the right to vote. Bondurant argued that the state had no evidence of voter fraud to back up the new rules.

Voting rights advocates have long opposed such laws, which require voters to present government-issued photo identification before they cast their ballots. Advocates argue that the law is discriminatory and burdensome and have called it a Republican ploy to suppress low-income and minority voting.

"It is not reasonable to require those people who are the least mobile to go get an ID, especially when there was no voter fraud in the first place," Emmet Bondurant told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. He pointed out that the disabled, elderly and those who cannot drive must "make a special trip that no one else has to make" to get an ID and that "the burden here is much greater for this class of people."