( – promoted by buhdydharma )
In a 6 – 3 vote that surprises exactly no one, the Supreme Court today upheld the laws that support picture identification to be presented at the polling place for states that are effected.
From AP:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.
In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.
It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush.
Justice Stevens said that the law was justified to protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.
I say that the law discriminates against elderly and poor people that do not have a picture ID and often no way of getting to the DMV to obtain one, or no way of paying for one if they did have a way to get there.
But, what do I know. I’m not a Supreme. I’m just a simple American citizen that believes all registered voters should be able to vote without restriction.
Considering that the decision to hand GW Bush the Presidency by the Supremes in 2000 added to this new decision, the score is now Supreme Court 2, American Voters 0.
The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'” Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.
For those of you that have viewed the Supreme Court clip from Boston Legal that I added in a comment from an essay last week, or have seen it from pfiore8’s essay on the subject this weekend, you will know that this is the same old crowd of Justices splitting along ideological lines once again.
More than 20 states require some form of identification at the polls. Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, but struck down Missouri’s. Monday’s decision comes a week before Indiana’s presidential primary.
The case concerned a state law, passed in 2005, that was backed by Republicans as a way to deter voter fraud. Democrats and civil rights groups opposed the law as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage elderly, poor and minority voters – those most likely to lack proper ID and who tend to vote for Democrats.
There is little history in Indiana of either in-person voter fraud – of the sort the law was designed to thwart – or voters being inconvenienced by the law’s requirements.
Read the entire article here, if you wish:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…
Do you consider this to be a case of Republican voter supression of the elderly and the poor, or do you see this as being a good law that will ensure there is no voter fraud, even though there has been no record of voter fraud found in past elections?
Yeah. Me too.
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Democratic President who can change the ideological balance of the Supremes back to what the American people want and need. Priceless!
(hahahaha) this would be a fair ruling IF I repeat IF the
court also included a way for all voters to obtain a free
voter id card. In the absence of that… well it certainly
smacks of – gotcha!
Have we started a list yet of all of the things that have to
be undone beginning next January????
if lawyers could really speak to the SCOTUS the way actors on the tv can. I personally trust my local, elected, county official that certifies voters. She does a wonderful job and of course there isn’t any overt voter fraud. That’s leaving out the fraud perpetrated by those who would work to convince the uneducated that alien hordes desire to corrupt our system. That’s rampant out here.