WA: Judge says state's new voter-ID law too stringent

By Gene Johnson

The Associated Press

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A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday barred Washington state from enforcing a new law that keeps people from registering to vote if their names do not perfectly match identifying information in other government databases.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez agreed with lawyers who claimed that under the law, misspelled names or other minor errors could improperly prevent people from voting.

The law, intended to help prevent voter fraud, took effect Jan. 1. It directed Secretary of State Sam Reed to compare driver's licenses, state identification cards or Social Security numbers on registration forms with records from state and federal agencies to make sure that a voter's information matched.

Potential voters could not be registered without a proper match. People whose applications were questioned had to respond to the state's efforts to verify their identity within 45 days, or they were not included on the rolls. As of June 22, registrations of 178 people had been rejected or canceled because of the law.

The Washington Association of Churches, minority-voter groups, a labor union and anti-poverty activists sought an injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law, and the judge agreed. He noted that the requirements for registering to vote are that a person be a citizen, 18 years old, a 30-day resident of their precinct and that the person had not lost the right to vote or been declared legally incompetent.

The state "has failed to demonstrate how an error or omission that prevents Washington state from matching an applicant's information is material in determining whether that person is qualified to vote," Martinez wrote.

The Secretary of State's Office did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

"This ruling knocks down an unnecessary barrier to voter registration," said Justin Levitt, of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, which represented some of the plaintiffs. "Voters who are eligible shouldn't have their registrations hung up by a typo, a married name or any number of other reasons."

Gov. Christine Gregoire won the 2004 election by just 133 votes over Republican Dino Rossi. Given that margin, Martinez said, "the public interest weighs strongly in favor of letting every eligible resident of Washington register and cast a vote."