By Hans von Spakovsky
In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 13 upheld Virginia’s voter-ID law.
The lawsuit, bankrolled largely by George Soros and filed by the Democratic Party of Virginia, had contended that Virginia’s law violated the Voting Rights Act and the First, 14th, 15th, and 26th Amendments to the Constitution. In the end, all those numbers added up to just one more loss for Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer, who brought the lawsuit.
In Lee v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the court held that not only does the photo-ID law “not impose an undue burden on minority voting, there was no evidence to suggest racially discriminatory intent in the law’s enactment.” Therefore, there was no violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and no constitutional violation either. The court’s description of the evidence presented by Elias and the plaintiffs shows just how frivolous this case was. Elias produced 14 “voter-witnesses” to support the Democratic party’s claims, yet as the district court found, “none of the voter witnesses was actually denied his or her right to vote.” In other words, out of the more than 5.6 million registered voters in Virginia, the Democratic party couldn’t find a single one who was unable to vote because of the law. So much for the Left’s constantly repeated theme that voter-ID laws “suppress” votes.
