State sees chaos in voter ID challenge
WASHINGTON – The 2008 presidential primaries would be thrown into flux if the Supreme Court agrees to weigh in on Indiana’s voter ID law, Attorney General Steve Carter told the justices.
In 2005, the General Assembly voted along party lines to require Hoosier voters to produce a government-issued picture identification, with some exceptions for absentee ballots, the indigent and those with a religious objection to being photographed.
Two dozen states have similar laws, and the federal appeals courts have disagreed on whether they are constitutional.
Last month the state Democratic Party and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana asked the Supreme Court to review the legal fight over Indiana’s law. The state’s voter ID requirement has operated in two primaries and a fall election.
“Despite the hue and cry about the supposed burdens of this law, and despite all of the politicians, political-party apparatus and political-interest groups in the case, no plaintiff could identify a single actual voter who could not or would not vote because of the voter ID law,” Carter said in the brief filed Monday with the Supreme Court. “This fact succinctly demonstrates why this case is unworthy of the court’s attention: It proves the law is benign.”
Besides that, Carter wrote, “granting review of the issue now would likely prompt a raft of last-minute voter-identification challenges that would disrupt the 10 2008 presidential primaries.”
The court will either agree to hear the case – ultimately choosing between the Indiana Democratic Party’s view and the state law – or refuse to consider it, which would be a victory for backers of the law. The justices have not yet said whether they will accept or reject the case.
Carter told the justices that if they are tempted to consider the case, they ought to wait until after the 2008 elections, when it would “not precipitate emergency, election-eve challenges” and when there would be a record of voter ID law enforcement to take into account.
He pointed out that by the end of February 2008, “well before this case would be decided,” 24 states and the District of Columbia will already have held presidential primaries.
“Fourteen of those states require some form of identification for all voters,” and agreeing to hear the case but not deciding the outcome before those people vote “would create new uncertainty as to the validity of all voter identification requirements, far more uncertainty than exists now,” Carter argued.
Under federal law, states must require identification from first-time voters who registered to vote by mail and did not provide verification of their identification with their mail-in voter registration.
Two dozen states, including Indiana, have broader voter ID requirements. Voters in seven states must show a government-issued photo ID; the 17 other states accept other forms of identification such as utility bills.
But even in the states with the strictest voter ID laws, voters who can’t produce an ID are allowed to vote. Most allow a provisional ballot; the voter must appear at a county office within a few days after the election and prove his or her identity.
sylviasmith@jg.net
