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U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights
Division |
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| Voting Section -
NWB 950 Pennsylvania Ave.,
NW |
Washington, DC 20530 |
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February 11, 2004 |
The Honorable William F. Galvin
Secretary of the
Commonwealth
of Massachusetts
State
House
Boston, Massachusetts 01233 Dear Secretary Galvin:
Your letter of February 2, 2004, to Hans von Spakovsky, has been
forwarded to the Voting Section for response. In that correspondence, you
raised concerns regarding the implementation in Massachusetts of the voter
identification requirements of Section 303(b) of the Help America Vote Act of
2002, 42 U.S.C. ยง 15483(b) ("HAVA"). You also seek clarification of
certain comments by the Department of Justice's Voting Section as to the
propriety of possible identification procedures in the City of Lawrence.
Section 303(b) applies to persons registering for the first time to vote
in federal elections, who apply to register by mail after January 1, 2003 and
who do not come within a Section 303(b)(3) exemption. If such persons do
not include with their registration applications a copy of one of several forms
of identification set forth in the statute, they must either show the requisite
identification at the polls when voting in person, or include a copy of such
identification with their ballot if voting by mail.
Under Section 303(b)(1), these requirements must be administered to all
voters in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner, and do not vary with the
demographic makeup of a State or its sub-jurisdictions. Section 304 also
specifies that these are "minimum requirements" and thus nothing prevents a
State from establishing stricter requirements. The Justice Department has
worked with States to implement all of HAVA's requirements for federal
elections, including those of Section 303(b), and has the authority under
Section 401 of HAVA to bring federal civil actions for declaratory and
injunctive relief against jurisdictions that fail to carry out the requirements
of the statute.
With specific regard to the City of Lawrence, your letter mentions a
private, pre-HAVA lawsuit filed in November 2001 (on the eve of municipal
elections) that sought to enjoin the city's plans to require all in-person
voters to show personal identification at the polls. See Morris v.
City of Lawrence, No. 01-11889 (D. Mass.). The city had adopted
this new identification requirement just before the election, and the court
enjoined its implementation. Critically, however, the Justice Department
did not participate in any way in that litigation, nor was it consulted by the
court. Although the Justice Department had negotiated a consent decree
with the city in a separate pre-HAVA lawsuit involving claims of insufficient
assistance offered by the city to Spanish-speaking voters, see United
States v. City of Lawrence, No. 98-12256 (D. Mass.), at no time did
the Department ever suggest that the city's voter identification procedure would
violate any provision of the Voting Rights Act.
You also reference in your correspondence an October 24, 2001, letter
sent to the city by a Voting Section attorney in which he expresses his concerns
regarding the possible impact of the city's then-new identification procedures
on the city's compliance with the consent decree in United States v.
City of Lawrence. But the Department did not object to the city's
voter identification procedures per se, and its letter should not be read
in any way to have done so. The problem, as outlined in our letter, was
the inadequate time the city had to implement these new requirements and train
pollworkers in the new procedures.
As noted above, the Department of Justice has been given the
responsibility by Congress to enforce HAVA, including the voter identification
procedures. The Department has made it clear that these requirements do
not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on several occasions:
1) in a February 26, 2002, letter to U.S. Senator Christopher S.
Bond. (HTML) (PDF)
2) in a question and answer posted on the Voting Section's website, (link);
and
3) by preclearing under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act voter
identification laws submitted by various states, including the State of Alabama,
which implemented the HAVA identification requirements and expanded them to
apply to all voters, not just first-time registrants.
We understand that the implementation of HAVA is a complex undertaking
for the States. Since its passage, we have been working with state
election officials as closely as possible to deal with these issues and to help
States address whatever practical concerns arise. We look forward to
working with you and your office to make HAVA implementation a success for all
of Massachusetts' voters.
Thank you again for writing.
Sincerely,
Joseph D. Rich
Chief
Voting Section
Updated 2008-07-25
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