Frayster KY JurisDoctor wrote in a post below titled Voter ID that he thinks the Court made a WISE decision. [Emphasis his.] “The least we can do is ask folks to show ID to vote!” he wrote.

So I’m wondering: What, exactly, is the most we can do? Require wheelchair-bound citizens to walk to their polling places? Require everyone older than 65 to turn a cartwheel while entering? Refuse entry to everyone who does not display a flag lapel pin?

This is not a rhetorical question, because the Stevens opinion holds in effect that any burden can be placed upon a relatively small percentage of citizens. What matters is not the level of burden but instead the number of citizens burdened. So a state such as Michigan that is undergoing a significant economic downturn and therefore has a substantial number of Republicans who would be financially burdened by, say, a poll tax levied (ostensibly) to defray the costs of maintaining the voting equipment could not constitutionally enact such a poll tax, but Indiana, Michigan’s wealthy neighbor to the south, could. At least until the recession spreads to suburban Indianapolis and, say, metropolitan Evansville, although in the latter, corn and soy futures these days may enable some who otherwise could not afford a poll tax to pay the tax and vote.

After all, as Stevens said, we wouldn’t want a close election to be determined by vote fraud; been there, done that, in 1868. Or by citizens who do not have a state-issued photo I.D., as long as their numbers remain low enough to swing only close elections to the Democrats. (Of course, in Florida the number of elderly nursing-home residents who have no state-issued photo I.D. probably is significant enough to swing even an otherwise-not-so-close election, but most of those people are transplants from such Democratic strongholds as New York City and suburban Chicago, so we don’t want elections determined by them either. Not if we’re Republican, anyway.)

Or, presumably, by anyone else who has, or until now had, the right to vote but who might choose to buy the week’s groceries instead of voting, faced with the choice.

Why wouldn't the elderly have ID?

Our nation's elderly have been living their lives and following the rules all their lives. Even if they don't drive ID is required for writing checks, opening accounts for such things as phone and cable tv services and numerous other daily tasks.

I have absolutely no reason to beleive that Identification is a problem for the elderly or anybody else eligible to vote.

ID would only be a problem for Illegal aliens!

The Savant:

So I’m wondering: What, exactly, is the most we can do? Require wheelchair-bound citizens to walk to their polling places? Require everyone older than 65 to turn a cartwheel while entering? Refuse entry to everyone who does not display a flag lapel pin?

This is not a rhetorical question, because the Stevens opinion holds in effect that any burden can be placed upon a relatively small percentage of citizens.

You bring up an excellent point. That is why I advocate abolishing polling places. They are essentially a "poll tax" on the slothful and the apathetic, who are indeed more than just a relatively small percentage of citizens. The government should be required to go to peoples neighborhoods with portable voting booths, like ice cream trucks already do. It seems that a boothmobile is certainly plausible. I for one would vote more often if it meant I didn't have to sacrifice precious time with my family to vote for some clown in Washington.

It is not a simple task to obtain an ID if you do not already have one. You have to show your brith certificate, which if you do not have is sometimes burdensome to get. If you were born in a different state, the rules on getting your birth certificate differ. And while Indiana is offering free ID cards, you have to pay to get a copy of your birth certificate. I work in social services with many clients who do not have an extra dime to spare let alone the 20 bucks needed to get a birth certificate.

If you increase the barriers to vote this population will not vote. We have to register to vote. You get a voter registration card which you can and should bring to your voting site. You sign in when you vote in person. What more is needed?

The fact is that this is not even a real problem. If it were the court would not have to reach back to 1868 to find an instance where it was. The real problem is electronic voting machines which have prorpietary software and have no paper trail. This is voter fraud waiting to happen and is a lot easier, not mention cheaper, to engineer than gathering large groups of people together to vote illegally one at a time. Let's not forget that this is the same supreme court who awarded the 2000 election to George Bush.

ghost:

They are essentially a "poll tax" on the slothful and the apathetic, who are indeed more than just a relatively small percentage of citizens. The government should be required to go to peoples neighborhoods with portable voting booths, like ice cream trucks already do. It seems that a boothmobile is certainly plausible. I for one would vote more often if it meant I didn't have to sacrifice precious time with my family to vote for some clown in Washington.

Even with your ridiculous sarcastic strawman argument, you actually do bring up a good point. Personally, I would strongly support changing election day from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday, or even allowing voting over the course of the entire week.

There are a lot of people out there who can't get time off to vote (either paid or unpaid) or simply can't vote because they do field work or work out-of-town.

My state has early voting, for about ten days before election day. It's the best thing since sliced bread. They have voting booths open at the Election Commision, and you just drop by and vote at your convienence. It beats the election day mad house by a long shot.

I am in favor of requiring picture ID when you vote. It always surprises me that no one verifies who I am when I vote. It would be easy to vote multiple times by simply knowing who is on the roles. If I have to show ID to buy beer, I fail to see how showing ID when I vote is that big a leap. I would be very suspicious of any political party that was against voter ID laws. They probably also are in favor of the vote early, and vote often rule.

I find it amusing that someone is worried about not having a paper trail, and in the same post make reference to the 2000 election. Fat lot of good a paper trail was in that election. Hanging chads, dimpled chads, unpunched chads. Yeah, real helpful.

They indeed have IDs. Many do not, though, have a current state-issued photo ID. And that's what is required by the Indiana statute. Nor is it necessarily easy for a physically incapacated elderly person to go to a state drivers license office and obtain a state-issued photo ID or to go to a place that takes passport photos. Passports, by the way, take several months to obtain once an application has been filed at a post office or other government office where they can be filed.

Try visiting a nursing home and imagining the logistics of the residents there obtaining a passport or a state-issued photo ID.

It's not the showing of a photo ID that's the problem, if you have a photo ID. The problem ifor some people, particularly the elderly and the disabled, is the physical logistics of getting a state-issued one. Under the Indiana law, the only acceptable photi IDs are passports or are photo IDs issued by the state drivers' license bureau. And for others, the problem is the cost.

Try visiting a nursing home and imagining the logistics of the residents there obtaining a passport or a state-issued photo ID. (Passports, by the way, take several months to obtain once an application has been filed at a post office or other government office where they can be filed, and they cost about $110, including the price of the photo.)

As for early voting, only a few states have it. I believe that Indiana is not among them.

tjcerveza:

My state has early voting, for about ten days before election day. It's the best thing since sliced bread. They have voting booths open at the Election Commision, and you just drop by and vote at your convienence. It beats the election day mad house by a long shot.

I am in favor of requiring picture ID when you vote. It always surprises me that no one verifies who I am when I vote. It would be easy to vote multiple times by simply knowing who is on the roles. If I have to show ID to buy beer, I fail to see how showing ID when I vote is that big a leap. I would be very suspicious of any political party that was against voter ID laws. They probably also are in favor of the vote early, and vote often rule.

I find it amusing that someone is worried about not having a paper trail, and in the same post make reference to the 2000 election. Fat lot of good a paper trail was in that election. Hanging chads, dimpled chads, unpunched chads. Yeah, real helpful.

Your signature is the verification Dumbass. As for the 2000 election this was not the one with the voting machine issues, nor was it Florida, it was in Ohio and yes the numbers were highly suspicious to say the least. Of course there is no paper trail and so no way to prove the fraud. How conveneient.

This is ridiculous. Voter turnout has been historically pathetic in this country, so let's not use this new "barrier" as an excuse. If someone really wants to vote, he or she will.

The solution is not to eliminate the ID requirement, it's to make it easier for the infirm/housebound to get ID's. The voting process is precious, and a few fraudulent voes can skew an entire election. It's just stupid to argue that there's no state interest here because voter fraud doesn't occur--how would we even know???? I'm as liberal as they come, and I think ID''s should be required for voting everywhere.

Voting is a burden. Getting to the polling place is a burden. Writing in for the absentee ballot is a burden.

What do you say to a blind person who can't drive to the polling place and can't fill in the absentee form? You place the burden on them to figure it out. It's a problem for them, but they're a small portion of the population, the burden is not too great and you can't solve everyone's problem.

If they're so checked out that they don't have and ID, they fall in the same category.

Progressive:

You're clearly too stupid to understand that the 2000 election was a statistical toss-up. Any final result would by definition be an arbitrary selection by those in charge. You just have your panties in a bunch because your guy lost the coin toss.

The voting process indeed is precious, which is my point. A few fraudulent votes can skew an entire election, but, much more likely and much more often, elections will be skewed by the difficulty that some people will have in obtaining a current state-issued photo ID.

As for your suggested solution, the issue is whether the statute is constitutional as the law--the statute itself coupled with the ease (or lack of ease) of obtaining a current state-issued photo ID if you are disabled or elderly and homebound or can't afford the fee to get one.

The Court could have said that if the state takes certain actions to enable everyone to have a current state-issued photo ID--having a state employee go to nursing homes with a camera and application forms, for example, and provides assistance to those who must obtain copies of their birth certificate or their naturalization papers, or whatever--then the statute might pass constitutional muster. But that’s not what the Court said. It said instead, "Let 'em eat cake--er, not vote."

Skewed elections in order to cure nonexistent problems are something to be prohibited only when they skew Republican.