Supreme Court shows support for voter ID law

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 10, 2008

Some justices are skeptical of a lawsuit challenging Indiana's stringent photo identification measure. They see no proof of discrimination.

WASHINGTON -- For a second time this week, a liberal challenge to a disputed state law floundered in the Supreme Court because lawyers could not show hard evidence that anyone had been harmed by the statute.

At issue Wednesday was Indiana's election law, the strictest in the nation, which requires voters to show an official photo identification, such as a driver's license or a passport, before casting a ballot.

Democrats challenged the law as a voting rights violation, contending the Republican-backed measure would deter thousands of poor, minority or elderly voters from casting a ballot.

But they filed their lawsuit in 2005, before the law had gone into effect and without naming any people who said they would be prevented from voting by the photo identification rule. That led to a round of skeptical questions from the court's conservatives, including how the law might have hurt voters.


"You want us to invalidate a statute on the grounds that it's a minor inconvenience to a small percentage of voters?" Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked near the end of the hourlong arguments.

Led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the high court has been increasingly unwilling to strike down state laws or regulations based on broad, hypothetical complaints. Roberts has insisted on real plaintiffs who cite specific problems.

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Voter ID just makes sense,in my state,the only question they ever ask me is what precinct I live in. They never ask for any proof of who I am.That may be because a few of them know me but they never ask anyone for ID

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"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins ..

One would think that protection for one of our basic rights wouldn't be rallied against..

As a side note, I HATE the way this article was written...

"a liberal challenge to a disputed state law"...

"Democrats challenged the law"...

"the Republican-backed measure"...

"skeptical questions from the court's conservatives"...

I understand the party affiliation involved, but this article was overkill...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

To me, voter ID's are just logical.

I agree. But now they need to get the voting machines to work properly!

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Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered. Those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus, the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win.

I have mixed feelings about this. Thinking in truck driver terms, I know a lot of drivers are concerned over the high cost and bull$hit involved to renew their hazmat endorsement ( which my husband is going to drop altogether when his expires next year, cause in Oregon it will cost him between 250 -400 dollars which he in principle thinks is unnecessary.)
So a lot of these drivers are putting off changing their license when they move to another state. Truly if they are owner operators they can delay the process indefinitely.
Also there is the question of homeless people who seem to reside outside of their own hometown. (Maybe they had hard times while traveling or whatever, but you never see anyone you recognize standing on the corner with a sign. Even crack addicts seem to be embarrassed to do that in a town where they went to grade school.)
Some homeless people don't even have IDs, but they certainly have rights.
I was asked for ID the first time I voted. I thought it was procedure. But it may be that back then with the lower population where everybody more or less knew everybody by sight, if a new person came in to vote, they checked them out that one time only. This may have been due to the pole worker's own common sense.
So I guess in a time when common sense is harder to find, and the population has been infiltrated to the point of exploding, you have to come up with some procedure to replace the old ways.

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The voting machines ARE a problem.

I think that until they can be trusted, there needs to be a printout that is dropped (by the voter) into a box next to the voting machine. This way, the voter can verify that the people that he/she voted for were actually tallied. If there is a problem, it will help with the recount.

Spot on!...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I will certainly give you that point when it comes to the homeless. When I lived in San Diego for a year, I met a lot of homeless people while helping with food distribution. It was almost impossible for them to get ID's since there was no place to mail them.

It's important for people to be self reliant, of course, but here is one of these situations where I support 'taxpayer intervention.' The government should issue voter ID's to the homeless so that they can exercise their rights. Let's face it... Anyone can end up in that situation.

Exactly...the printout should be mandatory,national elections should have a standard system enforced by law in all 50 states.

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"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins ..

Spencer Collins for class president!

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