A lawsuit was dismissed by a Federal judge, as it challenged the constitutionality of the voter’s identification law in Alabama.
The Alabama law was challenged in this lawsuit almost at the same time when there was a huge voter ID campaign already taking place in several states, led by the top lawyer from Hilary Clinton’s campaign – Marc Elias.
Filed in December 2015, in the U.S. District Court of Alabama’s Northern District, the case was submitted by the Greater Birmingham Ministries and Alabama State Conference of NAACP. The case had questioned the legality of the state’s voter ID law and went on to argue the laws that discriminated against the minorities and 280,000 voters who were taken out of the voting list.
“For five decades, Alabama’s use of discriminatory voting schemes has necessitated repeated federal intervention,” the case read. “Now, Alabama again seeks to disfranchise thousands of African-American and Latino voters—all in the name of ‘curing’ a voter fraud problem that does not exist.”
The case was dismissed by the U.S. District Judge, L. Scott Coogler, on Wednesday, while he said that there is no undue burden that is placed on any individual who has a wish to cast a vote. Any individual, who is not in possession of a photo identification, is not stopped from casting their vote as it is very easy to obtain it in Alabama, the court order read. Furthermore, these photo ids are also available completely free of charge to all the residents living in the state.
The Attorney General for Alabama – Steve Marshall went on to say that the verdict to let go of the case is “without a doubt the right decision.”
“Alabama’s voter identification law is one of the broadest in the nation with procedures in place to allow anyone who does not have a photo ID to obtain one,” said Marshall. “The court order makes the point exceedingly clear: ‘… a person who does not have a photo ID is not prevented from voting if he or she can easily get one, and it is so easy to get a photo ID in Alabama, no one is prevented from voting.”
Elias, who is also a partner at the Washington D.C.’s law office of Perkins Coie, has also worked as Clinton’s top campaign lawyer. He is the one who had led a massive campaign in several states against the Voter ID laws right before the 2016 elections. Elias has also filed the case in his personal capacity of being a partner at the Perkins Coie.
These challenges were backed by the multibillionaire liberal George Soros, who has set a goal to increase the electorate by almost 10 million voters, as per a leaked document.
Though Elias never filed the lawsuit in Alabama, the attorney involved with the lawsuit, however, is a Clinton Donor too. Furthermore, Clinton went forth to support the lawsuit in public and had referred to it as the “blast from the Jim Crow past.”
“The right to vote is essential to our democracy, and so Hillary Clinton strongly supports the NAACP [Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s] efforts to right the wrongs of Gov. Bentley and the Alabama Legislature,” Maya Harris, the former senior policy adviser for the Clinton campaign had said.