The reason the SOTUS did not consider the twenty-fourth amendment is that it's not relevant.

To assume that any requirement to vote, simply because cost is involved, constitutes a poll tax is absurd on its face.

Would the state now be required to reimburse a voter for their time and gas to go to the poll and cast their ballot? What about the same for their time and resources spent simply to register to vote?

What about the election itself? Elections cost money that is paid for from general revenues that is raised by taxes which are borne by individuals (who may or may not actually have the right to vote -- and please spare us all the claptrap about some taxes being paid by business, businesses don't pay taxes they simply collect them -- from US). How then pray tell could an election even be held?

The simple, common-sense explanation is that a Poll Tax is a fee that is imposed by the state in order for one to be able to exercise their voting franchise. Photo-ID's are used for many reasons, which is why they are so common. Requiring that one prove their identity as the law in question stipulates is neither burdensome nor unreasonable.

It should be in all our interest not only to have free and fair elections as stipulated by law but for the freeness and fairness to be transparent to all. Requiring photo-ID's is a straightforward means of doing this.

.If you were not so attracted to the vote suppression inherent in this decision you would have seen that not only has in person or imposter voting never been a problem but the decision rendered regarding the amendment, and now decided law, is to also recognize Equivalient or Milder Substitutes because they are, just like a poll tax, also avenues of vote suppression, and the only reason the Supreme court igored that clear infraction was because they could, thereby serving the republican agenda..

The Supreme Court decision specifically prohibited the substitution of any sort of burden in place of a poll tax.

In Harman v. Forssenius, Virginia responded to the new constitutional prohibition by allowing citizens to escape its poll tax if they filed a formal certificate establishing their place of residence. Otherwise, they would be obliged to continue paying a state tax of $1.50 if they wanted to cast a ballot. Lars Forssenius refused to pay the tax or file the residency certificate and brought a class action suit attacking the statute as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court agreed with Forssenius in 1965, only a year after the amendment came into force. Chief Justice Earl Warren emphasized that Virginia's escape clause for avoiding the $1.50 was unconstitutionally burdensome: "For federal elections," he explained, "the poll tax is abolished absolutely as a prerequisite to voting, and no equivalent or milder substitute may be imposed."

A picture ID is no burden to people that have them, just as $1.50 was no burden to a person that had money.

I wish we had even five Supreme Court Justices who could read. Stare decisis my behind!

Full quote "stare decisis et non quieta movere" meaning "stand by decisions and do not move that which is still"

Obviously it's not a "poll tax" - it's "voter suppression"

It's only "voter suppression" if you can not prove you are a registered voter and the free photo ID takes care of that problem. All this will do to suppress votes, is make it more difficult for people who have no right to vote in the first place, or those who are too lazy to put forth a small amount of effort to obtain a free photo Nothing worth having is easy and that includes our right to vote.

You are either remarkably dense or more likely being obtuse about a simple problem. You have completely misrepresented the situation.

The photo ID is free but the documents you need to get one are not. The "free voter ID" reference is bogus. My wife and I spent around $50 to get birth certificates and a marrage certificate so we could have passports. It took a few weeks, too. That's about what a person will need to get a "RealID" driver's license next renewal, and also what a nondriver will need to get one of yur hokey picture ID voter cards. It will be a burden for low-income folks, and that's the intent.

That's why this opinion is not reconcilable to earlier decisions. The Warren Court (we didn't know how good they were at the time) said that a substitute burden was unconstitutional. How much clearer could it be?

maxpractical:

.If you were not so attracted to the vote suppression inherent in this decision you would have seen that not only has in person or imposter voting never been a problem but the decision rendered regarding the amendment, and now decided law, is to also recognize Equivalient or Milder Substitutes because they are, just like a poll tax, also avenues of vote suppression, and the only reason the Supreme court igored that clear infraction was because they could, thereby serving the republican agenda..

What do you mean it has never been a problem? Illinois (especially Chicago) has been notorious for the phenomon of dead people voting. Since we know these people did not rise from the grave sombody cast a vote for them. With a voter ID law this simply can't happen.

tonto_goldberg: Thanks for straightening me out, you are absolutely correct. Lets let everyone vote. Undocumented Immigrants, convicted felons, hell why not people who are just legally visiting this country during the election. After all if you had you way about it, no one could require a valid ID so there would be no way to control who can or can not vote. No I am not dense, nor am I in any way for preventing people who have a legal right to vote from doing so. What I am sick and tired of is seeing a bunch of undocumented immigrants show up at the voting polls and illegally cast their votes because no one can ask for their legally issued photo ID. I guess given the thinking of the liberal Democrats when it comes to undocumented immigrants and the fact that they now want access to Social Security and Medicare, without having contributed a dime to either, I shouldn't be the least bit surprised that they now want to make sure they get the undocumented immigrants, and convicted felon's votes as well. I guess when you are desperate to get a Democrat in the White House, nothing is sacred.

Voting is one of those fundamental rights that ought to require an extremely high level of proof that a problem exists before we go messing with it.

There isn't any real evidence of illegal or improper votes being cast. We all have suspicions, but have you got any real proof of illegal voting? Perhaps the issue has stayed with us because both parties have an interest in keeping this issue alove - the GOP to keep the faithful inflamed (your rant above) and the DEM to keep the faith alive that they can somehow attract some more voters to their candidates.

Having said that, there is real and serious suspicion of vote fraud based on mathematical analysis of voter registration data vs voting records and the huge differences between exit polling data and vote counts. St. Louis, Chicago, Ohio, and Florida are suspicious areas.

The suspicion is and has been for a long time that dead Democrats still go to the polls for every election and dead Republicans vote absentee ballots. Add some hysteria about illegals, and you've got the current mess we are in.

You should be more careful about labeling people. I am as critical of the DEM as I am of the GOP.

The DEM do not appear to me to have a candidate who can appeal to the broader electorate after the media gets over giving them their special status for being, well, "special". The GOP might get my vote if there is a suitable VP candidate. McCain seems to be another Reagan; more a symbolic place holder than a real working politician. The only thing that could get me seriously interested in the race at this point would be to try and prevent McCain from being a stand-in for a third ruinous GWB term.

It's not illegals or dead people that are the problem - it's the poll workers and the vote counters. A voter ID means nothing.

Chicago and St. Louis have had the reputation for dead democrats voting at every election for a long time. Those dead democrats would get checked off as having presented a valid ID just the same way they get their votes recorded.

Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico have the reputation for more GOP votes counted than registered, and for holding on to their vote counts long past the poll closing time.

Fraud is fraud.

There isn't any real evidence of illegal or improper votes being cast.

The suspicion is and has been for a long time that dead Democrats still go to the polls for every election and dead Republicans vote absentee ballots.

You don't see any conflict between those two statements? Even assuming no one has been arrested for this kind of thing, the state has an interest in preserving the appearance of a fair election.

Those are just observations, so I don't understand your comment. Suspicions don't need any foundation in fact.

It's interesting that no one has mentioned the "appearance of a fair election" issue with regard to picture ID propositions. Instead, the picture ID proponents seem fixated on the illegal alien aspect, apparently to link a fatuous idea to an existing hot button for their constituencies.

Hint: Quite a few illegals enter the country with good-looking but completely bogus credentials. One could assume they bought them in good faith, since that's how things work in some countries. If you want documents, you pay someone and they are provided.

What do you want to bet that a voter ID card could be fabricated by almost anyone with a computer and a decent printer?

Your two arguments conflict. You're saying...

1) There's no ironclad proof anyone is cheating.

2) They're going to cheat anyway.

Problem is even if both of your statements are true they still don't do anything.

1) That everyone knows about and understands the joke about dead people voting isn't a good thing. The appearance of cheating is simply not tolerable in our society on this issue.

2) I agree. This doesn't go far enough to stop everyone. Similarly, the changes we've made to our currency to prevent counter fitting (adding color, etc) also won't stop everyone. The idea is to simply make it harder.

The point of all this, if there is any, is brutally simple. A picture ID will not do anything about vote fraud because the vote fraud that matters would be done by the vote counters, and not the voters. This movie inside your head about a long line of illegal immigrants, dead people, and terrorists at the polls is just plain silly.

A picture ID requirement will do nothing to reduce voter fraud. It may hinder the poor and elderly who would have problems getting the proper ducumentation and filling out the forms; that's the exact point of the earlier Supreme Court decision.

Counter fitting? That's where you cut the formica to fit the plywood, and then nail it on top of the cabinet, right?