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by BooMan
As Adam B points out, the Supreme Court has just disenfranchised thousands and thousands of black and Latino people. In upholding Indiana's picture ID voter requirement, they've assured that all states controlled by Republicans will immediately pass similar laws. If you have ever spent time in the inner city, you know that very few people have driver's licenses or passports, and that it costs $60-$80 to go down to the Division of Motor Vehicles or Secretary of State and get a photo ID. Most young people either have no picture ID, or use a student ID for identification purposes.
Let me just give you a real life example. In 2004, when I was managing voter registration teams, almost no one I hired in North Philadelphia had a photo ID. Likewise, almost no one they went out and registered in their neighborhoods had a photo ID. Yet, we got tens of thousands of people registered to vote and then we got them to the polls. If I had faced a requirement that everyone of those voters provide an official piece of photo identification, almost none of them would have voted. Why? First of all, because they didn't have $60-$80 to spend on acquiring the identification. Second of all, even if they did, they would have had to make a special trip to the DMV, which is another part of the city. The Supreme Court's decision (.pdf) is just laughable.
The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. Moreover, petitioners argue that provisions of the Indiana Criminal Code punishing such conduct as a felony provide adequate protection against the risk that such conduct will occur in the future. It remains true, however, that flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists, that occasional examples have surfaced in recent years, and that Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor -- though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud -- demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election. They upheld a law that is ostensibly about preventing voter fraud, but there is not one documented case in Indiana of a person going to the polls, impersonating someone else, and casting a vote. Voter ID laws are transparent efforts to disenfranchise poor people that live in urban environments and that rely exclusively on public transportation. And that should pass the test of a violation of the Voting Rights Act. But this conservative court was willing to tie themselves up in pretzels to justify the suppression of Democratic votes. In my experience talking to non-urban people about Voter ID laws, I always get a response like: 'Isn't it the least they could do to get a photo ID?' Yeah, maybe if you pay for it.
The Great Disenfranchisement of 2008 | 50 comments (50 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
The Great Disenfranchisement of 2008 | 50 comments (50 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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