Voter ID law upheld

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The Seventh Circuit on Jan. 4 decided two cases that, although dealing with Indiana law, could affect Wisconsin as well.

In the first, the court upheld, against a constitutional attack, a photo ID law for voters. In the second, the court held that a complaint should not have been dismissed, even though the plaintiff failed to comply with a state law verification requirement, and the district court’s electronic filing software rejected the complaint.

Voter ID

In the first case, the State of Indiana passed a law requiring, with some exceptions, that voters must present at the polling place a government-issued photo ID, unless the person votes by absentee ballot or lives in a nursing home.

The state Democratic Party, and assorted other plaintiffs, filed suit in federal court, claiming that the law was unconstitutional. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and the plaintiffs appealed.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed in a decision written by Judge Richard A. Posner, and joined by Judge Diane S. Sykes. Judge Terence T. Evans dissented.

The court acknowledged that the law could deter some people from voting: “some people who have not bothered to obtain a photo ID will not bother to do so just to be allowed to vote, and a few who have a photo ID but forget to bring it to the polling place will say what the hell and not vote, rather than go home and get the ID and return to the polling place.”

The court also acknowledged that most people who don’t have a photo ID are “low on the economic ladder and thus, if they do vote, are more likely to vote for Democratic than Republican candidates.”

As a result, the court concluded that the Democratic Party has standing to bring the suit, without addressing whether any of the other plaintiffs do.

Before leaving the issue of standing, however, the court remarked that not one of the plaintiffs alleged that he intended not to vote because of the law, but would vote if it were not for the law. From this, the court concluded that, while there are “no doubt” some people who fall into that category, the inability of the litigation’s sponsors to find one suggests that the adverse affect of the law on the Democratic Party is small.

The court observed, “the fewer the people harmed by a law, the less total harm there is to balance against whatever benefits the law might confer.”

Citing Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 433-34 (1992), the court stated that the state need not show that the law serves a compelling state interest, merely because it places any burden on the right to vote.
Instead, the court engaged in a balancing test. As noted, the court found the burden on voters to be minor. The state’s interest — preventing voting fraud — it determined to outweigh that burden.

Citing the Supreme Court in Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581, 593 (2005), the court quoted, “To deem ordinary and widespread burdens like these severe would subject virtually every electoral regulation to strict scrutiny, hamper the ability of States to run efficient and equitable elections, and compel federal courts to rewrite state electoral codes.”

The Dissent

Judge Evans, dissente
d, beginning, “Let’s not beat around the bush: The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic. We should subject this law to strict scrutiny — or at least, in the wake of Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992), something akin to ‘strict scrutiny light’ — and strike it down as an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote.”

Evans noted the lack of evidence in the record of voter fraud, in the form of persons voting while pretending to be someone else, noting that no one in the history of Indiana had ever been charged with doing so.

Evans asked, “Is it wise to use a sledgehammer to hit either a real or imaginary fly on a glass coffee table? I think not.”

IDEA

In the second case, the mother of an autistic student contended that the public schools were not providing an appropriate educational program for her son. She filed suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, but the case was dismissed for failure to pursue administrative remedies.

The final administrative decision was made on June 6, 2005, giving her 30 days to seek judicial review under Indiana law. On July 6, suit was filed in federal court in Indiana, using the same docket number as the earlier suit, rather than filing a new suit. The computer (the district allows electronic filing) rejected the filing with the notation that the case had been closed.

A new complaint was submitted July 9, but the district court dismissed the suit, holding that it was not timely filed, and therefore the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, and that the complaint was not verified, as required by Indiana law.

The mother appealed, and the Seventh Circuit vacated the dismissal, in a decision by Judge Frank H. Easterbrook.

The court held that, because federal law does not require complaints under the IDEA to be verified, the district court erred in dismissing the complaint for failure to comply with a state law verification requirement.

The court then turned to the timeliness of the complaint.

First, the court found that the 30-day time limit was not subject to equitable tolling. The court reasoned, “equitable tolling excuses the delay, but that doctrine deals with situations in which timely filing is not possible despite diligent conduct. Waiting until the last hours is not diligent; the errors that often accompany hurried action do not enable the bungling lawyer to grant himself extra time.”

The court found equitable tolling particularly inapplicable in the context of judicial review of an administrative decision. The court observed, “The loser simply notifies the other side (by a petition for review or a notice of appeal) that argument will resume in another forum. A lawyer who misses the time to file a notice of appeal cannot invoke ‘equitable tolling’ to justify the delay.”

	Related Article Case Analysis

Nevertheless, the court concluded that the complaint was timely filed.

The school district argued it was not timely, because the computer rejected it, but the court rejected this argument.

Noting that, if a paper copy of the complaint been handed to the court clerk, the clerk would have stamped a new docket number on it, and filed the document, the court concluded, “there is no reason to throw this suit out of court just because the e-filing system did not know how to take an equivalent step.”

The court noted that Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(e) was amended in 1993 to require clerks to accept documents tendered for filing, even if they are not presented in proper form.

Finding that the software that operates the e-filing system acts as the clerk for purposes of Rule 5, the court concluded, “a step forbidden to a person standing at a counter is equally forbidden to an automated agent that acts on the court’s behalf.”

Accordingly, the court held that the complaint was timely filed, even if was deficient, and vacate
d the dismissal of the suit.

Click here for Case Analysis.

David Ziemer can be reached by email.