Overrule voter photo ID

saxo-archive

Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2008 | midnight

Voters in Indiana, Georgia and Florida must present government-issued photo identification at their polling places, a requirement that many other states might impose if the U.S. Supreme Court decides it does not violate the Constitution.

The law in Indiana was upheld 2-1 by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on that decision and arguments are scheduled to begin Jan. 9.

Indiana voters who do not present photo IDs on Election Day may vote only provisionally. That means their votes will not count unless they appear in person within 10 days before county elections officials and present either a photo ID or two other forms of certified identification papers.

Supporters say strict laws requiring voters to present photo ID at their polling places prevent fraud. There is little proof of that, however. The Indiana Legislature, for example, passed its law in 2005, even though the state had never prosecuted a case of voter impersonation, according to The Washington Post.

The dissenting appeals court judge in the Indiana case wrote, “Is it wise to use a sledgehammer to hit either a real or imagined fly on a glass coffee table? I think not.”

We agree with his point. The real reason behind voter photo ID laws, in our view, lies in partisanship. Registered voters who are most apt to not have government-issued photo ID are the poor, who largely vote Democratic. Supporters of voter photo ID laws are largely Republican.

Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school, told The Washington Post there are “millions of Americans who don't have the kind of ID” required by Indiana. Should they be disenfranchised?

In the past Congress and the Supreme Court have stricken anything coming before them that stood in the way of citizens exercising their right to vote, including poll taxes and literacy tests. We hope that same spirit ultimately prevails on the issue of voter photo ID.