Supreme Court Upholds Photo ID for Voters – Poor, Minorities Hardest Hit

Posted by Enrique on 05.01.2008

In an exciting turn of events, the U.S. Supreme Court approved Indiana’s voter ID law. Liberal hero Justice John Paul Stevens betrayed the progressive cause by joining the conservative wing of the high court in upholding photo identification for on-site voters. Apparently, Stevens was a super-secret racist this whole time. Who knew?



What a glorious Monday it was! The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its highly anticipated decision on Indiana's SEA 483 election law, which required most citizens to present a government-issued photo ID at the time of voting. Several states have some sort of photo ID requirement for voters, and such laws are always the subject of partisan bickering. Republicans support photo IDs because they want to stamp out fraudulent voting. Democrats oppose photo IDs because they need fraudulent votes to win elections.

I kid, of course. Democrats argue that obtaining a photo ID is a hardship for elderly and destitute voters (many of whom are minorities, as you may have heard). They point to the Jim Crow-era "poll taxes" that required voters to pay a prohibitive fee to vote, which was meant to exclude African-American citizens from the franchise. They also point out that Republicans hate black people. Democrats love to cry "racism" to de-legitimize their opponents. Surprisingly, when actually forced to make an argument to overturn SEA 483, they came up short. They couldn't even get John Paul Stevens to go along. Who could have imagined that Justice Stevens was a racist at heart?

The story so far…

The case is called Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, and you can read the opinion in PDF format here. It's 65 pages, but read the whole thing if you have time, it took me less than an hour. All right, I kinda skimmed through Justice Souter's pansy dissent, but I read most of it, I swear. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to actually know what I'm talking about. No need to thank me.

SEA 483 passed the Indiana legislature on a party line vote, with all Republicans in favor and all Democrats opposed. The Indiana Democratic Party was even one of the petitioners in Crawford seeking to overturn the law. In other words, Democrats were really invested in the outcome of this case. Which is understandable, since they typically can't win elections that aren't rigged. (I'm just teasing again.) (Or am I?) I won't bore with you with the details of the original case – I'd much rather bore you with analysis of what the Crawford decision means for America's future. Stevens authored the lead opinion, joined by Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts. Here is Stevens' reasoning as to why SEA 483 doesn't represent an unconstitutional obstacle to voting.


[J]ust as other States provide free voter registration cards, the photo identification cards issued by Indiana's Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) are also free. For most voters who need them, the inconvenience of making a trip to the BMV, gathering the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.

Stevens goes on to acknowledge that certain classes of voters may find SEA 483 more burdensome than others, such as elderly persons who were born in another state. However, he points out that Indiana has a provisional ballot option for voters who are unable to provide photo ID at the polling place. Stevens' apparent defection to the conservative wing of the high court in Crawford surprised many observers, but John Fund of the Wall Street Journal provides some insight. Stevens grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago (and he's a Cubs fan, the bastard), where he became acquainted with the kind of electoral shenanigans that Chicago still has a reputation for to this day ("the Daley machine," etc.). Thus, Stevens is a little more receptive than the average lefty to legislative efforts aimed at eliminating vote fraud. So maybe he's not a closet racist.

Speaking of people who lefties assume are racist, Justice Scalia issued a concurring opinion upholding SEA 483, joined by Justices Alito and Thomas, that goes farther than Stevens. Whereas Stevens' acknowledged that certain voters may face special burdens under SEA 483, Scalia says those burdens are utterly irrelevant (emphasis in original).


The Indiana law affects different voters differently, but what petitioners view as the law's several light and heavy burdens are no more than the different impacts of the single burden that the law uniformly imposes on all voters. To vote in person in Indiana, everyone must have and present a photo identification that can be obtained for free…The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not "even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting."

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Souter expresses the opposite view – that elderly and destitute voters are simply incapable of obtaining a free photo ID, and are probably mentally retarded as well. But he's a progressive, so that's totally cool, dude. Souter's dissent (joined by Justice Ginsburg) drones on for 30 tedious pages – I suppose when you don't get your way, it motivates you to prattle on senselessly.


The first set of burdens shown in these cases is the travel costs and fees necessary to get one of the limited variety of federal or state photo identifications needed to cast a regular ballot under the Voter ID Law. The travel is required for the personal visit to a license branch of the BMV, which is demanded of anyone applying for a driver's license or non-driver photo identification. The need to travel to a BMV branch will affect voters according to their circumstances, with the average person probably viewing it as nothing more than an inconvenience. Poor, old, and disabled voters who do not drive a car, however, may find the trip prohibitive, witness the fact that the BMV has far fewer license branches in each county than there are voting precincts.

Christ, man – go douche and drink a wine cooler. With all due respect to American citizens who are honestly and truly incapable of obtaining a photo ID, there has to be some standard by which voters affirm that they are eligible. If Souter thinks Indiana's photo ID requirement is too burdensome, and that the provisional ballot option isn't a sufficient remedy, then what in the hell standard would he apply? The act of voting in and of itself requires the burden of showing up at the polling place and filling out a ballot, which many poor and elderly voters might also find "prohibitive." Thankfully, Souter doesn't explain what standard he would use to determine a voter's eligibility, but he does explicitly say that SEA 483 is "uncomfortably close to the outright $1.50 fee [poll tax] we struck down 42 years ago." Nice to know his heart's in the right place, but this man is out of his depth. How a hamster like Souter ended up as one of the nine most powerful jurists in this country boggles the mind.

Justice Breyer also dissented, but his opinion was only five pages long and actually made a good point – Breyer notes that Florida and Georgia both have photo ID laws that are less restrictive than Indiana. He essentially makes the same argument as Souter, but somehow avoids coming off like an enormous pussy. Kudos, Breyer.

This issue is of special interest to me, because I'm a Wisconsin resident. As you may be aware, my hometown of Milwaukee experienced some unfortunate voting irregularities during the last presidential election. There was a discrepancy between the number of ballots counted and the number of voters listed – a discrepancy of 4000-5000. And that was just the in the City of Milwaukee, in a state that John Kerry won by only 11,000 votes. When the Milwaukee Police Department Special Investigations Unit released its official report earlier this year (of course it took three-and-a-half years, why wouldn't it…), it recommended eliminating Wisconsin's progressive Same Day registration system. Yeah, can you believe that? In my home state, anyone can show up at the polling place and vote without a photo ID. They just need a utility bill. No shit. Don't laugh, I have to live here. Although I'm sure Souter approves, I've already written to both of my state legislators, drawing their attention to the Supreme Court's Crawford decision.

This just in! I just received an e-mail reply from Wisconsin Sen. Jim Sullivan that says, "Thank you for your recent email. I appreciate your taking the time to let me know your thoughts regarding voter ID in Wisconsin. I wanted to acknowledge that I received your email and I will be responding to your concern shortly." It's democracy in action! My country ‘tis of thee…