Judge Blocks State on Photo ID at Polls

A federal judge in Atlanta blocked Georgia from enforcing a new state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

In issuing the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy said the law amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax because the state was not doing enough to make ID cards available to those who could not afford them.

The requirement “is most likely to prevent Georgia’s elderly, poor and African American voters from voting,” Murphy wrote.

“For those citizens, the character and magnitude of their injury -- the loss of their right to vote -- is undeniably demoralizing and extreme.”