Supreme Court Throws voting rights under the bus...
The Supreme Court has ruled to uphold Indiana'a voter ID laws. These laws have the effect of making it more difficult for the elderly and the poor to vote. However, they have the "benefit" of ensuring that that our elections will never suffer the voting fraud like we have no record of taking place in the 20th century!
That's right-- make it harder to vote in order to promote society's interest in preventing something that literally never happens.
In dissent, Justices Souter and Ginsburg:
Indiana’s "Voter ID Law" threatens to impose nontrivial
burdens on the voting right of tens of thousands of the State’s
citizens, [] and a significant percentage of those individuals are
likely to be deterred from voting. The statute is
unconstitutional under the balancing standard of Burdick v. Takushi,
504 U. S. 428 (1992): a State may not burden the right to vote merely
by invoking abstract interests, be they legitimate, [] or even
compelling, but must make a particular, factual showing that threats to
its interests outweigh the particular impediments it has imposed. The State has made no such justification here, and as to some aspects of its law, it has hardly even tried.
More here.
- FILED UNDER: Editor Posts, Elections, Supreme Court
- April 28, 2008








By frazzledMay 1, 2008 - 12:24am
OK, here goes. The article mentioned probably falls into the "opinion column" catagory in your opinion, so I emailed the author and asked for links to prove his research. Here is what I came up with.
Article- http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=745109
Links for research:
The Stevens quotes are from the text of his ruling. You can get that at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
The Baker-Carter report came out a few years back. You can download it off this site: http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/
The Milwaukee Police report on fraud can be downloaded by this pdf link: http://media2.620wtmj.com/breakingnews/ElectionResults_2004_VoterFraudIn...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us/21voting.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The 150,000 new voters bit was also around recently. Try:
http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=8149590
or http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR200804...
And the report on the effect of the rules on turnout was from a University of Missouri guy, prof of public policy who has made a name for himself in studying turnout. His name is Jeffrey Milyo. You can read a news report about the study here: http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2008/jan/20080113news005.asp
And you can download the pdf of the report here: http://truman.missouri.edu/uploads/Publications/Report%2010-2007.pdf
Seems like he does his homework.
- parent
By jerrykramer64fanMay 1, 2008 - 12:30pm