KNIGHT: Voter ID Terrifies Democrats

The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 10 months away, but it’s clear from the Obama administration’s order halting South Carolina’s new photo ID law that the Democrats already have brought a gun to a knife fight.

How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb voter fraud?

On Dec. 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez sent a letter ordering South Carolina to stop enforcing its photo ID law. Mr. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division that booted charges against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008, said South Carolina’s law would disenfranchise thousands of minority voters.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson rejected Mr. Perez’s math and explained on Fox News why the law is necessary. The state Department of Motor Vehicles audited a state Election Commission report that said 239,333 people were registered to vote but had no photo ID. The DMV found that 37,000 were deceased, more than 90,000 had moved to other states, and others had names not matched to IDs. That left only 27,000 people registered without a photo ID but who could vote by signing an affidavit as to their identity.

Mr. Wilson told me by phone Thursday that he would file a challenge to the order in federal district court in January.

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