Condon v. Reno, Civ. A. No. 3:95-192-0

• Decision Date: 12 December 1995
• Docket Number: 3:95-345-0.,Civ. A. No. 3:95-192-0
• Citation: 913 F. Supp. 946
• Parties: Charles M. CONDON, Attorney General for the State of South Carolina, and The State of South Carolina, Plaintiffs, v. Janet RENO, Attorney General; United States of America, Defendants and Third Party Plaintiffs. and Trevor Potter, Chairman, Federal Election Commission; Federal Election Commission, Defendants, State of South Carolina, Counter Defendants, Governor David Beasley, in his official capacity; William B. Depass, Jr., Chair of the State Election Commission, in his official capacity; and James F. Hendrix, Executive Director of the State Election Commission, in his official capacity, Third-Party Defendants. GRASS ROOTS LEADERSHIP; Kamau Marcharia; South Carolina United Action; Ted Robinson; Natural Guard; Andrew Mitchell; and Sam Peterson, Plaintiffs, v. David BEASLEY, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of South Carolina; Charles M. Condon, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; William Depass, Deborah Cureton, Walter Robinson, Samuel Howell, and James Tanner, each in their official capacities as members of the South Carolina State Election Commission, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

913 F. Supp. 946

Charles M. CONDON, Attorney General for the State of South Carolina, and The State of South Carolina, Plaintiffs, v. Janet RENO, Attorney General; United States of America, Defendants and Third Party Plaintiffs. and Trevor Potter, Chairman, Federal Election Commission; Federal Election Commission, Defendants, State of South Carolina, Counter Defendants,

Governor David Beasley, in his official capacity; William B. Depass, Jr., Chair of the State Election Commission, in his official capacity; and James F. Hendrix, Executive Director of the State Election Commission, in his official capacity, Third-Party Defendants.

GRASS ROOTS LEADERSHIP; Kamau Marcharia; South Carolina United Action; Ted Robinson; Natural Guard; Andrew Mitchell; and Sam Peterson, Plaintiffs, v. David BEASLEY, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of South Carolina; Charles M. Condon, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; William Depass, Deborah Cureton, Walter Robinson, Samuel Howell, and James Tanner, each in their official capacities as members of the South Carolina State Election Commission, Defendants.

Civ. A. Nos. 3:95-192-0, 3:95-345-0.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Columbia Division.

December 12, 1995.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Moffatt Laughlin McDonald, Atlanta, GA, Armand Georges Derfner, Charleston, SC, Maha Zaki, American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Regional Office, Atlanta, GA, for Grass Roots Leadership, Kamau Marcharia, South Carolina United Action, Ted Robinson, Natural Guard, Andrew Mitchell.

Armand Georges Derfner, Charleston, SC, for Samantha Peterson.

Charles Molony Condon, Attorney General of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, Treva G. Ashworth, Columbia, SC, Cameron B. Littlejohn, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, SC, Kenneth Paul Woodington, Columbia, SC, for David Beasley, Charles M. Condon, William Depass, Deborah Cureton, Walter Robinson, Samuel Howell, James Tanner, State of South Carolina, James F. Hendrix.

John Douglas Barnett, Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, SC, Janet Reno, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities Litigation, Washington, DC, Duval Patrick, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, John Tanner, Barry Weinberg, Gilda R. Williams, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Washington, DC, Holly Wiseman, Sarabeth Donovan, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, Washington, DC, for Janet Reno.

John Douglas Barnett, Assistant United States Attorney, John Tanner, Barry Weinberg, Gilda R. Williams, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Holly Wiseman, Sarabeth Donovan, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, Washington, DC, for U.S.

John Tanner, Barry Weinberg, Gilda R. Williams, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Holly Wiseman, Sarabeth Donovan, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, Washington, DC, for Trevor Potter, Federal Elections Commission.

John Douglas Barnett, Assistant United States Attorney, Barry Weinberg, Gilda R. Williams, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Holly Wiseman, Sarabeth Donovan, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, Washington, DC, for Danny L. McDonald.

PERRY, Senior District Judge.

I. FINDING OF FACT

1. These are consolidated cases¹ in which the State of South Carolina and its officials seek to enjoin enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg et seq. (NVRA), while the United States and its officials, as well as private plaintiffs, seek to require South Carolina to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg (Pub.L. No. 103-31, 107 Stat. 77) NVRA. The private action has been certified as a class action with plaintiff Samantha Peterson suing on behalf of all eligible but unregistered voters in the State of South Carolina. FED.R.CIV.P.RULE 23(b)(2); Tr. 205.

2. The State of South Carolina views the voter registration procedures set forth in the NVRA as a federal regulation imposed on and interfering with a state function. Properly viewed, however, the NVRA addresses a function which the Constitution has largely entrusted to the federal government — the conduct of federal elections — and seeks to eliminate state interference with that function. In effect Congress has told the states, including South Carolina, that if they wish to adopt voter registration systems for federal elections, those systems must be designed to promote orderly elections and may not continue to act as barriers to voting. Congress has drawn on the lessons of many years and many states, presented at extensive hearings, to design the most efficient and least intrusive means of promoting voting without state interference. That means is simply to minimize "multiple registration requirements," i.e., to provide that when states record or register their citizens for one governmental purpose, such registration is also sufficient to register for voting in federal elections.

3. As described, Congress' goals are legitimate, its means are appropriate and limited, and the NVRA fully meets all constitutional requirements. The State of South Carolina will be ordered to submit a plan for full and prompt compliance.

Background of NVRA

4. The National Voter Registration Act was passed in 1993 after repeated hearings over a period of several years. Congress' findings are reported in H.R.Rep. No. 103-9, 103rd Cong., 1st Sess. (1993), reprinted in 1993 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 105 (the House Report), and S.Rep No. 103-6, 103rd Cong., 1st Sess. (1993) (the Senate Report). Those findings show that Congress was concerned that current registration requirements create two types of problems: low voter turnouts and unequal access to voting among different categories of citizens. Witnesses repeatedly told Congress that registration, rather than being simply a mechanism to facilitate orderly elections, was in fact a significant barrier to voting.²

5. Until the late 19th century, voting was largely restricted to white males, registration was generally unknown, and voter turnout rates were high. Congress found that the introduction of restrictive voter registration laws and procedures originated for the purpose of keeping certain groups of citizens from voting. Southern states, in particular, sought to bar blacks and certain of the rural poor from exercising the franchise. House Report at 2; Senate Report at 3.

6. Congress found that the institution of restrictive registration requirements immediately caused a steep drop in voting participation. In the southern states voter participation plummeted from 57% to 19% in the Presidential elections held between 1896 and 1924, with black voter participation falling to "essentially zero percent." House Report at 2. The registration section of South Carolina's 1892 election law is estimated to have disfranchised 75 percent of South Carolina's black voters.³

7. For many decades, the registration process has been the principle vehicle keeping voter participation down in the states of this Nation. As Congress found, even when the percentage of eligible voters registered was low, the percentage of registered voters who actually voted was consistently high. The House Report noted that "public opinion polls, along with individual testimony received by the Committee, indicate that failure to become registered is the primary reason given by eligible citizens for not voting. It is generally accepted that over 80 percent of those citizens who are registered vote in Presidential elections." House Report at 3 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1993 p. 107; see also, Senate Report at 2-3.

8. Evidence presented in this Court confirmed this fact for South Carolina. Thus, in 1990, only 52% of the eligible population was registered to vote, but 80% of those who were registered did actually vote in the 1992 Presidential election. Tr. 60 (Bowers); Tr. 95, 113 (Hendrix).

9. Congress has repeatedly attempted to deal with the problem of registering as a deterrent to voting. The First and Second Enforcement Acts, in 1870 and 1871, 16 Stat 140, made it a crime for state registration officials to interfere with registration. The 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts took further action focused on registration, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act provided that no one could be denied registration because of errors that were not material in determining eligibility. 42 U.S.C. § 1971(a)(2)(B). This was necessary to sweep away such tactics as disqualifying an applicant who failed to list the exact number of months and days in his age. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 temporarily suspended literacy tests in a group of states (later made a permanent ban and expanded to all states) and in extreme cases authorized the Attorney General to take the registration process out of state officials' hands and perform the registration process through federal officials.

10. Courts have likewise struggled with registration barriers. E.g., Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 59 S.Ct. 872, 83 L.Ed. 1281 (1939) (state adopted an early registration deadline to nullify Supreme Court decision which had held the grandfather clause unconstitutional); Toney v. White, 488 F.2d 310 (5th Cir.1973) (untimely purges); Bishop v. Lomenzo, 350 F.Supp. 576, 587 (E.D.N.Y. 1972) (premature registration cut-offs; the court rejected the state's claim that it was too burdensome to require faster processing of registration applications, saying "the remedy lies in providing more clerks rather than in registering fewer voters").

11. The foregoing statutes and cases did away with the most egregious obstacles to registration, but they still left most states with shamefully low levels of voting participation. Despite the much heralded increase in voter participation in the most recent Presidential election in 1992, 70 million eligible citizens still did not...