Justice: S.C. voter-ID law discriminatory

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department Friday rejected South Carolina's photo-requiring voter-identification law, saying it discriminates against minorities.

The law, passed in May and signed by Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, could lower minority turnout and damage President Barack Obama's re-election prospects, critics allege.

The decision by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division comes a week after Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, celebrating the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

"Are we willing to allow this era -- our era -- to be remembered as the age when our nation's proud tradition of expanding the franchise ended?' Holder asked in his Dec. 13 speech.

Haley said in a statement: "I am working every day to move South Carolina forward, and whether it be illegal immigration reform, creating jobs despite the NLRB, or now Voter ID, the president and his bullish administration are fighting us every step of the way. It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights."

"We're doing this in a very fair, apolitical way,'' Holder told The Washington Post in a recent interview. "We don't want anybody to think that there is a partisan component to anything we are doing.''

A dozen states have passed laws this year requiring photo ID to vote.