The Supreme Court has upheld the Constitutionality of state requirements of photo IDs for voting.
What's interesting isn't the decision but the composition of the majority.
Indiana has a "valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Stevens said that Indiana's desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver's license serves as the identification.
The story itself is a picture of media bias, highlighting what Democrats who opposed the measure said in the lede, and using a headline that talks about states "demanding" identification to vote. This article from law.com does a better job at objectivity.
Naturally, the nutroots are screeching about disenfranchising people, but I can only conclude that liberals want people to vote illegally. The law in question clearly allowed for free photo IDs specifically to overcome any arguments about "disenfranchisement." But that doesn't stop your local nut from going ballistic. A few choice comments:
Not everyone can afford to get a government-issued ID. This directly goes against the poor who may not have the money to purchase an ID if they don’t have a drivers license. Unless the government is going to give those who can not afford the proper ID, which I highly doubt (health care anyone?), I don’t see how this if fair.
The number of Americans with driver's licenses is very high (I don't have an exact figure) and, as I said before, the state is providing free photo IDs. It's hard to argue that free ain't free enough.
Hey Scalia, why don’t you go Cheney yourself! This torture approving, pissing his pants in fear ala “24″ goodfella whannabe deserves the deepest scorn of every true American. A pathetic excuse for a judge and the perfect Bush lackie. He’ll rot in Hell with the rest of these pathetic excuses for profesionals in this criminal Administration.
Shorter commenter: I'm too stupid to add something intelligent to the thread.
THIS is the best reason to vote Democratic in November. We just can’t allow the highest court in the land to become even more reactionary. It would put our nation behind fifty years, minimum...
50 years back? To 1958? But--but I like my TiVO and color TV!
who was the sixth vote?
Stevens?
we are so fokked…
Scalia’s a fan of Jack Bauer.
Stevens has gone senescent.
The goddam Inquisition controls jurisprudence in the USofA…
Chuy!
A good example of why we need literacy tests.
I could go on. The comedy on the Left never ends. One commenter swore that the Constitution didn't guarantee a right to vote. Others swore that we're going down the road to fascism (seems we've been on that road a long time according to these people. Shouldn't we have gotten there by now?). Others just swore.
The Supreme Court made the right choice. States should have the right to require ID to vote to minimize voter fraud. Getting a photo identification is very easy in this country and the state even offered free IDs for those unable to afford one. What's really at work here is that liberals don't care if ineligible voters get to cast ballots because they hope those "voters" would cast ballots for Democrats. This is why they supported the Motor Voter law and decry any restrictions as placing too great a burden on (pick your favorite group here).
UPDATE: The hysteria continues at Echidne of the Snakes, where someone should hand Anthony McCarthy the smelling salts.
We have to save the right of a citizen to cast a vote from the Supreme Court. It’s clear now, the Republicans intend to overturn the Voting Rights Act and all other protections for the right of The People to cast a vote. The photo ID law will drive down the vote in states that adopt it, it will be the easiest thing for them to do to make it an insurmountable burden to obtain an ID in a timely manner to vote, legal remedies will take longer than the presidential campaign.
Both of the Democratic candidates for president, all of our leadership should issue a joint statement condemning this atrocity and begin a plan to legislatively overturn the usurpation of the Court on behalf of Republican state legislatures to rig the vote through making it harder for poor and minority citizens to vote. They want to send us back to the 1950s and eventually back to the 1800s.
Notice there's no evidence for this shrieking other than the fact that the SCOTUS said states can require IDs. How this heads us back to the 1800s takes more imagination (or estrogen, I suppose) than I have.
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