Opinion ID: 1085740
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: As-Applied Challenge

Text: As an alternative to their facial challenge, the Plaintiffs assert an “as-applied” challenge to the Act, arguing that even if the photo ID requirement is constitutional in general, its application to their particular circumstances creates an impermissible burden on their right to vote. See 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 187, at 274 (2005) (“An ‘as applied’ challenge to the constitutionality of a statute is evaluated considering how it operates in practice against the particular litigant and under the facts of the instant case, not hypothetical facts in other situations.” (footnote omitted)). Initially, we note that the trial court found that the Plaintiffs’ complaint failed to assert an as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of the Act, and the Court of Appeals neither acknowledged the Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge nor explicitly found it waived. The Defendants contend that the trial court’s conclusion was proper and that the Plaintiffs have thus waived their right to raise an as-applied challenge. See In re Estate of Smallman, 398 S.W.3d at 148 (“An issue not raised at trial may not be raised for the first time on appeal.”). We disagree. While the Plaintiffs’ complaint is not entirely clear as to the type of constitutional claim they intended to allege, it contains numerous factual allegations regarding the specific circumstances of Ms. Turner-Golden and Ms. Bell. Also, both made claims that their “inability to obtain any of the acceptable forms of [photo ID] without considerable expense or hardship” resulted in an “an undue burden on [their] [c]onstitutional right to vote.” Because the Plaintiffs are entitled to a liberal construction of these allegations, see Webb v. Nashville Area Habitat for Humanity, Inc., 346 S.W.3d 422, 426 (Tenn. 2011), we find that the complaint sufficiently stated as-applied constitutional claims of undue burden. Because the Plaintiffs adequately presented their as-applied challenges in the trial court, we reject the Defendants’ contention that the as-applied challenges have been waived and find it appropriate to address the merits of the Plaintiffs’ claims. -19- Ms. Turner-Golden contends that the Act is unconstitutional as applied to her because “getting an acceptable photo ID would have required taking hours out of her day, while also balancing her career education program and caring for the two young grandchildren over whom she has custody, one of whom has special needs.” She asserts that when she obtained a photo ID card in January of 2012, she made a two-and-a-half-hour trip to a Shelby County Driver Service Center to obtain the photo ID card and made a separate trip to obtain a copy of her birth certificate, for which she paid a fee. She further contends that fifty-three of the ninety-five counties in Tennessee are without an office that issues free photo ID cards. Ms. Turner-Golden concedes, however, that Shelby County, where she resides, has four such offices. Ms. Bell, also a Shelby County resident, is in her seventies, and, while she no longer drives a car, she has a Tennessee driver’s license that does not include her photograph. As in the case of Ms. Turner-Golden, Ms. Bell asserts that significant time and travel would be involved in acquiring identification compliant with the Act. It is undisputed, however, that because of her age, Ms. Bell may vote without photo ID by casting an absentee ballot. As the Defendants point out, neither Ms. Turner-Golden nor Ms. Bell claim that they lacked the financial means necessary to obtain a photo ID card. Even if they lacked sufficient funds to obtain a photo ID card or the documentation necessary to obtain a free photo ID card, either could avoid the photo ID requirement by invoking the indigency exception of Tennessee Code Annotated section 2-7-112(f). The primary burden upon which they rely, therefore, is the time of travel necessary to make a trip to obtain a photo ID card, a task made more complicated by the demands of education and family, in the case of Ms. Turner-Golden, and by the lack of a means of transportation, in the case of Ms. Bell. In our view, the Plaintiffs have failed to establish that the burdens of time and travel are sufficient to sustain an as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of the Act. While these difficulties arising from the Plaintiffs’ individual circumstances make casting a vote less convenient for them, such inconveniences, without more, are insufficient to elevate the photo ID requirement to the level of an impermissibly burdensome condition on the right to vote. See Cook, 16 S.W. at 473. Thus, the state’s compelling interest in the integrity of the election process justifies the application of the photo ID requirement in the circumstances of both of these individuals. See Burson, 504 U.S. at 199; Bemis Pentecostal Church, 731 S.W.2d at 904.