Voter ID Laws Are Set to Face a Crucial Test (SCOTUS Wednesday)

Voter ID Laws Are Set to Face a Crucial Test
AJ Mast for The New York Times


Mary-Jo Criswell, a Democrat and one of the voters cited in a challenge to an Indiana voter ID law, says she was disenfranchised by the rule.


By IAN URBINA
Published: January 7, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS — In April 2006, a federal judge upheld Indiana’s law on voter identification, the strictest in the nation, saying there was no evidence that it would prevent any voter from having his ballot counted.

Valerie Williams, a Republican, says she was similarly left out.

But on Election Day last November, Valerie Williams became that evidence, according to lawyers in a case that will be argued Wednesday before the Supreme Court. After Ms. Williams grabbed her cane that day and walked into the polling station in the lobby of her retirement home to vote, as she has done in at least the last two elections, she was barred from doing so.

The election officials at the polling place, whom she had known for years, told her she could not cast a regular ballot. They said the forms of identification she had always used — a telephone bill, a Social Security letter with her address on it and an expired Indiana driver’s license — were no longer valid under the voter ID law, which required a current state-issued photo identification card.

“Of course I threw a fit,” said Ms. Williams, 61, who was made to cast a provisional ballot instead, which, according to voting records, was never counted. Ms. Williams — who has difficulty walking — said she was not able to get a ride to the voting office to prove her identity within 10 days as required under the law, and her ballot was discarded.

The incident is at the heart of the highly anticipated case, which challenges the constitutionality of the Indiana law and, according to Daniel P. Tokaji, a professor of law at Ohio State University, is “the most important case involving the mechanics of election administration in decades.”

The case goes before the Supreme Court just as the 2008 presidential primaries are beginning. The court will deliver a decision by late June, in time to affect the November elections.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/us/07identity.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us

Watch Scalia & Thomas jump into action.

These Voter ID laws do two things:

1) they suppress Democratic votes overall. Not a lot, but it's probably the equivalent of spotting the GOP a point or two in any race.

2) they keep alive the long-cherished notion among conservative idiots that Democrats can only win through "voter fraud," that Democrats bus in thousands of welfare mammas or illegal aliens with phony IDs to vote in districts where they're not allowed.

I predict the SCOTUS will continue true to form and help out their GOP brethren.

Say it's one Repuke vote lost for every 20 Dem? Pretty acceptable in that big picture.

Is there really an reason to think the Republican SCOTUS will act differently?

Look for much more of the same if another Gooper gets elected President.

Since, being prevented from voting, or being let to vote, effects the outcome of the general election, what is the possibility of any American suing the state of Indiana.

If a person is allowed to or not allowed to vote means the presidential election would be decided by those with ID's only isn't that supressing my right to have a person chosen or not chosen.

May not be really a legal question, but since it is a federal election, it effects us all, even tho it is in a certain state.