FELN:

Late yesterday, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger granted the State of Tennessee’s motion to dismiss the federal case challenging Tennessee’s voter ID law. The Court relied on the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, arguing this foreclosed plaintiffs’ claims of discrimination against college and university student voters.

The plaintiffs – the Nashville Student Organizing Committee (NSOC) and seven students from Fisk University, Belmont University and Tennessee State University – claimed that Tennessee’s voter ID law discriminated against them on account of their age in violation of the 26th Amendment and discriminated against public college and university students by excluding their student ID cards from the list of accepted voter IDs while permitting faculty and staff ID cards from the same institutions.