A federal appeals court has upheld a Virginia law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, rejecting a challenge from Democrats who argued that it suppressed voting by minorities and young people. A three-judge panel of the fourth US circuit court of appeals ruled on Tuesday that the law did not violate the Voting Rights Act or impose an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. The ruling comes just months after a different panel of the same court struck down a North Carolina law that required voters to produce a photo ID and also scrapped same-day registration and shortened early voting periods. But the panel that issued Tuesday’s ruling found that the facts in the North Carolina case “are in no way” like those in the passage of Virginia’s bill. Virginians can obtain free photo IDs at voter registrar offices, but Democrats argued that few people knew about that option because the state had done little to spread the word.
Bruce Spiva, an attorney for Virginia Democrats, told the court in September that the law was passed for a single purpose: to make it more difficult for black people, Latinos and young people to vote. Democrats claimed the photo ID law was a response to shifting demographics that helped Barack Obama win Virginia in back-to-back elections.
But the panel disagreed, writing that “the law was passed by the Virginia legislature through the normal legislative process, and that process was unaccompanied by any facts or circumstances suggesting the presence of racially discriminatory intent”.
Emily Bolton, communications director of the Democratic party of Virginia, said the party was disappointed by the court’s decision and was still determining its next steps in the litigation. “We remain fully committed to fighting unnecessary burdens on the right to vote in the commonwealth,” she said.
Full Article: Virginia voter ID law upheld by federal court after Democratic challenge | US news | The Guardian.