NOTWITHSTANDING the virtual absence of any evidence of voter ID fraud, Republican-controlled state legislatures began enacting voter photo-identification legislation in 2006.

Republican Mike Turzai, the state House majority leader from Pennsylvania, remarked a short time ago: "Voter ID is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."

Even if there is bad motivation, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Judge Robert Simpson, a Republican, ruled the court will not enjoin its use in the upcoming election because, the judge observed, by its language the voter ID law applied to all voters. He also held that the voter ID laws could be enforced in a fair manner.

Up to one million Pennsylvania voters do not have the required photo IDs. Most are African American and Latino youth, the aged, and the poor — all more likely to vote Democratic.

In 1964, Willie Brown, then a state assemblyman, called for San Francisco attorneys to volunteer to go to Mississippi and gather evidence that the voter registration laws there were used to prevent African Americans from voting.

There was no reference to race in the Mississippi registration laws, and they purportedly applied to all voters. By their language, then, they were also "nondiscriminatory," and capable of being enforced in a fair manner.

"The 15th Amendment (guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote) was not violated," the Mississippi legislators who had enacted these laws proclaimed.

Rather it was "only circumvented by Anglo-Saxon ingenuity," according to comments made at the 1927 Mississippi State Bar Convention.

The laws, according to the same bar commentary, "had belted the whole circle of expedience in legislating against African American citizens habits and weaknesses, and without infringing on the Constitution of the United States."

Scores of Bay Area attorneys answered Brown's call.

I went with attorneys Jim MacDonald and George Moscone (the late San Francisco mayor). Examiner reporter Mel Wax also made the trip.

Our mission was to determine how these Mississippi registration laws were applied.

By their language, the laws, which were initially held be constitutional on their face, (later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court) required that applicants complete an application form without assistance, interpret sections of the Mississippi constitution, give the meaning of citizenship, and pass, to the satisfaction of the registrar, other enumerated tests.

White voters were given assistance and were always registered immediately even if they were not literate.

African American voters, when they could get service from the deputies, were given no assistance and were not allowed to register.

They were told to return in 30 days to determine if they had satisfied the requirements, which were, for the African Americans, "a test of skill."

In the meantime, his or her name would be published in the local newspaper for two consecutive weeks. Lost jobs, intimidation and often violence followed.

Understandably, almost all did not try a second time to register.

In 1964, Rep. James Roosevelt of California, speaking on the floor of the House during the 89th Congress, joined 148 other congressmen, objecting to the seating of Mississippi's delegation to the House. He exclaimed, "In that state, two-fifths of the people are excluded from any share in making political decisions."

Of course, thanks to President Lyndon B. Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1965, things have changed there.

Ironically, most Southern states today do not have voter ID laws.

When unnecessary state legislation requires the production of certain kinds of identification in order to vote, the Southern package of voting registration laws of the '60s necessarily comes to mind.

Some would argue the photo ID laws of Pennsylvania and other states are different in kind from the Southern legislation struck down by the Voting Rights Act.

More likely, it is a question of degree.

In today's world, it seems immaterial whether the ID laws can be administered fairly.

The boast of Rep. Turzai was not unlike the proclamation of the Mississippi legislators in 1927.

The "nondiscriminatory" ID laws "legislate against (the voters) habits and weaknesses," and are obviously enacted not to protect the integrity of the voting process, but to affect the outcome of the elections by preventing certain classes of citizens from voting at all.

George Martinez is a Novato lawyer who specializes in white-collar criminal and civil litigation and civil rights law. He is a graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law.