Supreme Court Upholds Indiana’s Voter ID Law

One week ahead of the Indiana Primary, the Supreme Court has upheld that state’s voter ID law. Some 20 states have such laws, and the court has upheld most challenges to them, although it did strike down Missouri’s recently. As a general rule, this journal opposes ID cards, however, in this instance, one has to say the court is probably right.

The Indiana law enacted in 2005 was upheld by both a federal judge and by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Before 2005, Indiana voters only had to sign poll books at the polling place, where photocopies of their signatures were kept on file for comparison. Now, a government issued ID is needed.

Defenders of the law, who are largely Republican, argue that it is a huge deterrent to voter fraud. The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process’,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote. However, Indiana has very few incidents of voter fraud, so quite why the law is needed is unclear. Matching signatures appears to be an adequate safeguard.

Opponents of the law, usually Democrats, argue that the poor, elderly and minorities are less likely to have ID (and they tend to vote Democratic). Justice David Souter dissented writing the law “threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens.” Justice Anthony Scalia argued “The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not “even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting’.” It depends on what “burden” means.

The key to this is the word “free.” Were the state to require a voter to purchase an ID from the state, that would be a poll tax, and therefore, unconstitutional. If, however, the ID is free, the security of the polls may well be worth the “burden.” What is interesting in the US is that so much time and effort is being put into making sure only registered voters cast ballots and so little into making sure that those ballots are accurately counted.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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