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The U.S. Supreme Court this morning, by a vote of 6-3, upheld Indiana’s Voter ID law. The law had been challenged as unconstitutional because critics said it put an undue burden on voters. The law requires to show a government-issued picture ID when they go to the polls. The Court turned away the undue burden argument, saying the state had a strong interest in fighting voter fraud and it also noted Indiana had highly inflated voter rolls which could contribute to fraud.
The Court also said voter ID was a reasonable effort to ensure the integrity of the voting process. The decision comes just eight days before the state primary. Tom Fisher, the state Solicitor General who argued the case before the Court, says the clear 6-3 majority of the Court shows the reasonableness of the state’s law.
The Court also noted that Plaintiffs failed to produce a single individual who had been disenfranchised by voter ID.
I have yet to see what the problem was with Voter ID. You need it to cash a check, rent a car and in some cases get into a bar. So I don’t see what the big deal is. And to make matters worse, Voter ID has been on the books for two years if you haven’t gotten an ID by now, maybe you shouldn’t be going to the polls. By the way, the Indiana primary is May 6.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Now if we could only get Beth “Incompetent” White to stop disenfranchising voters!
April 28th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Someday, people may look back on the Indiana law with nostalgic regret. Oh for the days when it was easy to get I.D.’s and vote.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Nostalgic regret? Yeah, all the dead people who have somehow been voting for years…
April 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I do not believe the argument that this law is unduly burdensome on the right to vote is a particularly strong one. Because the fundamental right to vote is whats involved here, you can certainly make the argument that we ought to weigh the issue of placing burdens, impediments or any level of inconvenience on the exercise of that right very carefully. Nonetheless its a tough argument to make that asking of people to show photo ID as we do in order for them to do a whole slew of other everyday activities is so unduly burdensome as to rise to the level of a constitutional violation of the basic rights of citizens. Moreover, the solution is pretty simple which is that people should do something they ought to do in any event which is to obtain legal ID. For those of us who worry that people will be disenfranchised by this, mobilizing ourselves to make sure that the vast majority of the community is empowered with ID to cast their vote is what we should be doing. Legislatively, there is no reason that the law cannot be amended to make its provisions regarding provisional ballots and mechanisms for obtaining ID easier and more convenient.
Having said all that, lets also keep it real. This law was intended to suppress votes. It was championed by the republicans, ostensibly to prevent voter impersonation fraud, a crime which has never been committed and which as a potential corruptive influence on elections is really a fairly remote possibility. As a practical matter, you are not going to get enough people to participate in a conspiracy to affect an election by impersonating voters which would have any appreciable effect. So the republicans fought hard and we spent state dollars to defend a law that doesn’t solve a real problem. That means that it was really intended for other purposes and that purpose was to suppress a class of voters who are typically expected to fall into the democratic column.
Now that the Supremes have upheld it, we can expect to see a slew of similar laws around the country that are put forward by republicans ostensibly to prevent voter impersonation, but as this is an imaginary problem, are really being passed for their effect of suppressing some voters. I will not be surprised to see other types of restrictions or requirements passed which use other types of potential vote fraud as justification. The result within a few years may be a slew of restrictions which when viewed as a whole operate to suppress a significant number of voters. This kind of rigging of democracy is quite frankly, evil. We as republicans should stand for the expansion of the franchise, not its suppression. This is the type of dubious legislative action which keeps me a reluctant republican.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
This is just common sense. The idea that anyone would challenge it is ridiculous to the nth degree. “An undue burden” to get a state ID? Let me explain this to people one time. I’ll even do it nicely. If you live your life in such a manner that your finances don’t allow you to manage a state ID, then you have no business determining the course of our country - one in which billions and trillions of dollars are spent.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I wish I still got carded going into bars, but I am too “mature” for that now. :-(( But I still get carded getting on planes. I flew earlier this month and had to show ID THREE TIMES before I was allowed on the plane, and this was a domestic flight! Can’t wait until this summer when I go overseas!!
April 28th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
@uncommonsense
It is nearly indisputable that the fraud this law is supposed to present has never been documented to have occurred, nor is it a likely that voter impersonation will occur and even if it does, it won’t be on a scale large enough to be of any significance to an election.
Those are commonsense facts too. And since their true, the question then is why the heck did republicans bother to push for a law for a problem that doesn’t exist nor is likely to? And then proceed to spend valuable tax dollars to defend it in court? Because while it will certainly prevent someone from easily accomplishing voter impersonation, it will also have the effect of suppressing votes for some sectors of the population, sectors assumed to vote more democratic than not.
I won’t pretend that the ID requirement is such a burden that it offends the constitution, if you don’t pretend that voter suppression was not the overriding goal behind the aggressive initiation and defense of this legislation.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:43 am
…..uh…..we can’t wait either!
April 29th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Aaron said “It is nearly indisputable that the fraud this law is supposed to present has never been documented to have occurred, nor is it a likely that voter impersonation will occur and even if it does, it won’t be on a scale large enough to be of any significance to an election.”
The same can be said for anyone who hasn’t been allowed to vote. It just HASN’T happened.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:44 am
@Aaron:
The levies in New Orleans didn’t break before Katrina, so does that mean we would have been wrong to reinforce them prior to 2005?
It’s called being proactive, my good man, and it’s what intelligent leaders do. To say that voter fraud would never happen is naive at best. Do you really think La Raza or other groups wouldn’t attempt to skew an election (of any size) if they had the chance? Why else would this be opposed so vehemently? The sponsors of this bill were (rightly) closing a loophole. Your argument of vote suppression is completely extraneous.
As for this portion of your post:
“…nor is it a likely that voter impersonation will occur and even if it does, it won’t be on a scale large enough to be of any significance to an election.
Those are commonsense facts too. And since their (sic) true,…”
Those are not facts. They’re opinions. The difference is key.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:27 am
When a person says “it’s commonsense facts”, it just means he/she has no evidence and is speaking from somewhere besides his mouth.
Vigo County, 1915. Bad as Tammany Hall for sending out the “repeater” voters. 75-100 people went to prison (finally). “Repeater” voters are impersonators.
Anybody who believes differently is naive beyond belief or dumb as a rock.
Just because it is rare for vote fraud actually getting prosecuted doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, ostrich pundits.