After a Pilot Project was conducted in 2001 pursuant to Ga. L. 2001, pp. 269, 285, § 19, the General Assembly established a uniform direct recording electronic DRE voting system. Ga. L. 2002, p. 598. See also Ga. L. 2003, p. 517. The Secretary of State examined, purchased, and distributed touch-screen voting machines, testing them at various points during the process. In 2006, several Georgia residents Appellants filed a multi-count complaint for declaratory judgment, injunction, and mandamus against the Secretary of State, the Governor of Georgia, and the Georgia State Election Board Appellees, challenging the authorization and use of the DRE equipment. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court entered an extensive order granting Appellees’ motion in its entirety. Appellants appeal from that order. 1. In three counts of their complaint, Appellants allege that this state’s use of the DRE equipment denies them equal protection under the Federal and State Constitutions and the fundamental right to vote under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Appellants contend that the trial court erred by failing to recognize that voting is a fundamental right and improperly applying a “rational basis” test instead of a “strict scrutiny” test to those three counts. Unless governmental action infringes upon a fundamental right or the complaining party is a member of a suspect class, a substantive due process or equal protection challenge is examined under the “rational basis” test. Georgia Dept. of Human Resources v. Sweat , 276 Ga. 627, 628 2, 630 3 580 SE2d 206 2003.
a “The right to vote is fundamental, forming the bedrock of our democracy. Cits.” Wexler v. Anderson , 452 F3d 1226, 1232 III 11th Cir. 2006. “However, it is also clear that states are entitled to broad leeway in enacting reasonable, even-handed legislation to ensure that elections are carried out in a fair and orderly manner. Cits.” Weber v. Shelley , 347 F3d 1101, 1105 II B 9th Cir. 2003. The Constitution provides that States may prescribe “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,” Art. I, § 4, cl. 1, and the Supreme Court of the United States therefore has recognized that States retain the power to regulate their own elections. Cits. . . . Election laws will invariably impose some burden upon individual voters. . . . Consequently, to subject every voting regulation to strict scrutiny and to require that the regulation be narrowly tailored to advance compelling state interest . . . would tie the hands of States seeking to assure that elections are operated equitably and efficiently. . . . A more flexible standard applies. . . . Under this standard, the rigorousness of our inquiry into the propriety of a state election law depends upon the extent to which a challenged regulation burdens First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Thus, . . . when those rights are subjected to “severe” restrictions, the regulation must be “narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.” Cit. But when a state election law provision imposes only “reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions” upon the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters, “the State’s important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify” the restrictions. Cits. Burdick v. Takushi , 504 U. S. 428, 433-434 II 112 SC 2059, 119 LE2d 245 1992.
