The United States Supreme Court upheld a voter identification requirement for voting. Six of the nine Justices agreed that Indiana’s identification requirement (which is one of the strictest in the United States) was Constitutional. Significantly, one of the Court’s most liberal members, Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote the deciding opinion on behalf of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy. If one was needed, the unequivocal language of the majority opinion appeared to put the final nail in the coffin of challengers who attempted to thwart any meaningful measures to assure the integrity of elections by preventing in-person voter fraud. Justice Stephens wrote that the Indiana voter identification requirement was “amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.” Judge Murphy has ruled that Georgia’s photo identification law is Constitutional.
Case closed.
Not so fast Eddy
But what does all of this mean in the real world? Mostly, it means that the kind of superficial challenge successfully used in Georgia after shopping for the right venue (Rome, Georgia) no longer works. For some time now, it has become clear that the arguments that the Georgia lawyers used to convince Judge Harold Murphy in Rome to issue injunctions preventing the enforcement of Georgia’s photo identification statute were meritless. Both the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had already made clear that Georgia lawyers’ argument lacked merit. The Georgia Supreme Court had kicked the case out based on the fact that the Georgia lawyers could not even find a single plaintiff who lacked an acceptable photo ID.
Eventually, even Judge Murphy recognized that he had been led by the Georgia lawyers to a “legal island” isolated from any Constitutional or legal basis to enjoin the enforcement of Georgia’s photo identification statute. After repeated injunctions were issued while the rest of the legal world recognized that voter identification requirements were Constitutional, Judge Murphy eventually decided that Georgia’s photo identification statute met the standards imposed by the United States Constitution. Significantly, this only occurred after it became clear that the data that Judge Murphy had been provided by former Secretary of State Cathy Cox in her quest to undercut Georgia’s photo identification law was inaccurate and unreliable.
Unfortunately, there is little remedy for either the State of Georgia (which incurred and continues to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees) or for Georgia voters (who endured election after election without the benefit of the greater election integrity that derives from better protection from in-person voter fraud). Under any meaningful system, there should be some accountability for perpetuating a case after it is clear that it lacks either factual or legal basis. Yet, neither the former Secretary of State nor the Georgia lawyers pursuing the challenges face any accountability for the harms to Georgia voters they have inflicted.
The saddest part of this story is that the opposite has in fact happened. Although it is impossible to believe, the Georgia lawyers challenging Georgia’s photo identification have convinced Judge Murphy to award them attorneys’ fees in a case they lost. In addition, they continue their appeal of the decision finding Georgia’s photo identification requirement Constitutional notwithstanding the United States Supreme Court’s decision. It is worse. They have even appealed Judge Murphy’s attorney fee award to them insisting that he should have given them more money as attorneys’ fees in the case they lost.
In the days following the announcement of the United States Supreme Court’s decision, the Georgia lawyers challenging Georgia’s photo identification law quickly announced that it had no impact on their case and it was their intent to continue their challenge to Georgia’s photo identification requirement.
There does come a point when folks need to just step up to the plate accept that they got it wrong. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld voter identification requirements, and the hand-picked judge decides that Georgia’s law is Constitutional, this would be that time - unless of course this has never really been about the Constitution or the law - could be.