[EL] federal court says no to using library card photo-ID in Tennessee

[Robbin Stewart]

I have found the complaint, but not the decision. Perhaps someone with
PACER could post it.

http://ballots.blogspot.com/2012/08/httpmedia.html

This seems to me like a good case for appeal, if the plaintiffs are
willing. Accepting library cards seems a reasonable construction of the
statute, especially if the doctrine of constitutional avoidance is applied.

I could see four votes on the current court opposing voter ID, three votes
to uphold voter ID no matter how unreasonable in practice,and Roberts
voting to construe the statute to allow the memphis library cards to be
used, in order to avoid the constitutional questions. But this all
speculative depending on what the opinion says, what issues were briefed,
what claims were waived,and so forth. It is interesting that it pits a
municipality against a state; that is not the usual line-up. I also wonder
how the state constitutional claims were handled.

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/07/31/u-s-district-court-refuses-to-force-tennessee-to-let-voters-at-polls-use-photo-library-cards/
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
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