Opinion: GOP, Dems split over Supreme Court OK of Indiana voter ID law. More to come?

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

In a rather decisive 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court today approved an Indiana law requiring voter identification at the polls, which is likely to prompt other states to adopt similar measures against voter fraud.

Democrats, lead by -- who else? -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, immediately denounced the ruling as placing a ‘roadblock to democracy’ by requiring all voters to produce some form of official state identification before being allowed to vote.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said, ‘Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago mayor — though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud — demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.’

Thus, he wrote, the state has a legitimate interest ‘in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.’

The Court dismissed Democratic arguments that because the law had been supported by Republican state legislators and opposed by Democrats that it should be invalidated.

It also rejected the Democratic argument that the law places....

...undue burden on young and old voters who may not have valid state ID. The law’s opponents did not produce one plaintiff who had been so inconvenienced or disenfranchised.

More than 20 states have imposed some kind of ID voting requirement. The Court’s decision, which was opposed by Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is likely to encourage other states to follow suit.

It came just 8 days before the next Indiana election, the crucial Democratic primary that pits Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama against each other in their marathon struggle for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Here’s a shock. The Republican National Committee liked the decision. And although he was not asked for identification, someone who resembled House Republican Leader John Boehner praised the decision. ‘In the world’s oldest and most respected democracy, we can never permit those who seek to defraud the electoral process to succeed.’

Over at the American Princess blog, they asked a relevant question: ‘Wait! How will people vote more than once now?’

--Andrew Malcolm