Indiana’s Voter ID law got a hearing before the United States Supreme Court today. Maureen Groppe is of the opinion that the Justices appeared reluctant to throw out the law. (And, why not, from the crowd that brought us the appalling Bush v. Gore decision.)
TPM Muckraker notes that Todd Rokita gave a particularly inept defense of the law during a recent interview.
To get a handle on what lawmakers were trying to accomplish, it might be useful to take a look at what sorts of amendments were considered and rejected:
Senate Bill 083 requiring Hoosiers to produce state or federally issued photo ID before being permitted to exercise their right to vote passed Second Reading in the House. The House Republicans voted against:
# a provision that would have allowed a voter, in lieu of a photo ID, to sign an affidavit which would subject them to perjury prosecution if they were voting fraudulently and would have subjected absentee voters to the same ID requirements if they were casting their vote in front of an absentee voter board or voting absentee at the Clerk’s office.
# a provision that would have required a precinct election board who prevented a Hoosier from exercising their right to vote for failure to produce identification to provide the voter with information advising the voter of 1) the permissible forms of identification; 2) the requirements for having the provisional ballot counted; 3) contact information for the circuit court clerk, the voter’s senator and representative, the toll-free number staffed by the election division, and the election division’s web-site.
# a provision requiring the secretary of state, before each election, to send notice of the identification requirements for voting to each person who registered to vote after the most recent primary or general election.
UpdatestAllio! has a good round up on some of the Voter ID discussion going on out there.
If anyone wants to know why we need this law, talk to me.
One word: Pastrick. That bastard stole more elections that you could ever believe. The East Chicago Democrat machine had all kinds of dead people voting. The only reason that East Chicago has a recorder and doesn’t use the county recorder is so the machine knows who died!
And they named the East Chicago marina after that bastard. The feds still can’t pin anything on him directly, although they seem to be going the civil route on the “sidewalks for votes” scandal.
If Indiana is so concerned about voting fraud, why is it so easy to cast an absentee ballot?
Pila: good point.
Buzzcut: objective, empirical, corroborating evidence?
‘”Empirical,corraborating evidence’ is difficult to assemble on voting fraud probably because most US counties are controlled by one party,and voting is a county domain.I became aware of this during the Florida debate in 2000 when the public debate on voting irregularities was focused in high population counties such as Broward(1,700,000 population),which are also heavily Democratic.But there were also reports(Republican controlled Osceola county)) of county officials taking home absentee ballot applications for the weekend to correct technicalities ( the point is that if not corrected secretly at home they would not have been legal).The Republican defense at time against these accusations was that Democrats were trying to throw out the military absentee ballots and keep our soldiers overseas from voting.Barring the Federal government stepping in, and supverising elections I don’t see any easy solution to either Democratic or Republican voter fraud.It would always be a mud fight otherwise. Certainly having to show a picture ID would cut down potential legal Democratic voters inordinately compared to Republican voters,so photo ID would seem to be one of those ‘republican solutions’ Let’s not deal with fraud on just one side.
Clarification: most counties are dominated by one party,not just controlled,and there are considerably more red counties than blue counties.Ask any Republican to show the red-dominated US map of nationwide Republican party control.
I witnessed voter fraud in Marion County in 2003. I documented it in a blog post: http://kolehardfacts.blogspot.com/2003/11/boatload-of-impropriety-ever-since.html
When it was brought it to the attention of the county clerk’s office, it was shrugged off. The rationale was that the precinct went 85-90% Democrat on average, so there was no point in making a fuss. It would look petty and silly and therefore not worth chasing, so said the office. The clerk was a Republican. The Republican precinct committeeman was furious, but what could he do?
My suspicion is that both parties commit their frauds at such precincts, for these reasons. Rather than padding vote totals, they shaved down the opposition. I observed straight-ticket Republican ballots in the trash can. It was easy to observe them then, because we were using optical scan voting, and you could determine at a glance any straight ticket. If you figure that one party or other dominates a county, then by shaving down a vote or two here or there, you can begin to affect the larger races in favor of your city, county, or state candidates.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with ID.
There is definitely fraud out there. Anyone who wants to find it really doesn’t have to look very hard.
I think I’m bothered less by the actual fact of having to produce a state or federal issued picture ID to exercise my right to vote than I am by the fact that “voter fraud” is a pretext.
If the sanctity of every vote was a guiding principle, at the least, these folks would’ve tightened up the absentee voting requirements. They probably would’ve required a paper receipt for electronic voting. They would’ve done a lot of stuff. But, the only thing they did was make the act of voting at the polls on election day a little more burdensome.
Does anybody else find it absolutely hilarious the the poster child for the opposition to this law was registered to vote in Florida AND Indiana?
That pretty much illustrates the need for a voter I.D. doesn’t it?
Most districts are gerrymandered to where elections are pointless, the voting machines we use aren’t secure or well coded, and folks are in arms about the voter ID law?
Voter ID would prevent dual registration how?
Doug –
Apparently voter ID caught Faye Buis-Ewing, mentioned above. She may also be committing a felony or two by having homestead property tax exemptions in both Indiana and Florida, according to the article.
Voter ID also means that anyone trying to vote twice would need two sets of ID (if they are trying to vote in place of a moved / absent / deceased voter) or would have one ID associated with two (or more) registrations, which is easier to find in a statewide listing.
I feel if a person has to pay more then $10 for documentation to get an ID it is an unfair burden. That is where I have issues.
Here’s the BMV link that notes you can get a free ID card for voting purposes, and the identification you need to provide.
Reading the article, it looks like this lady never attempted to vote twice, and never voted in Florida. Better amend the constitution or something so that what didn’t happen still doesn’t happen again.
So it was just fine that she was registered to vote in both states?
At the very least, it wholly nullifies any idea that she should have standing to challenge a voter ID law.
Joe makes a great point about the gerrymandering of districts. At the end of the day, there are many faults and frauds about our elections.
I don’t mind the requirement for ID. I think it should be up to the voters to demonstrate that they are who they say they are. Unlike the law, though, I believe that any picture ID should suffice.
I don’t for a minute believe that any solution is going to be perfect. Certainly there are bogus IDs out there. So, what’s a good solution, if a government issued ID is a big problem?
A lady who owns houses in two states, registered to vote in two, voted in one. So the fix is to make a law that inconveniences a bunch of other people?
Just as a mental exercise, imagine applying that one-almost-bad-apple-demonstrates-need-for-new-law mindset to, say, the Second Amendment.
Just as a mental exercise, imagine applying that one-almost-bad-apple-demonstrates-need-for-new-law mindset to, say, the Second Amendment.
Umm. We do. The Supreme Court has allowed guns to be regulated in many ways. Very similar in fact to requiring a state ID to vote. They’ve even allowed municipalities to outright ban handguns.
Of course, they’re going to revisit that decision this year. So we’ll see.
My intended point was that I believe many who would oppose gun regulation think that these overbearing restrictions on voting are a-ok.
I could be wrong about that.
But the Bush administration, for instance, is quite unfriendly to gun restrictions, but is enamored with voting restrictions. Seems to me the same principles would be at play in both instances. I would suggest maybe they are against infringements of constitutional rights, except when such infringements can help them win elections.
I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.
Indiana has some pretty lax gun laws by the standards of the gun haters. Yet go out there and get your CCW license, and you will have to provide documentation NOT UNLIKE the ones you need to vote!
What the heck has the Bush administration done regarding the gun laws? There’s been no changes in the last 8 years, other than allowing the assault weapons ban to expire, which was a CONGRESSIONAL action (or non-action, as the case may be).