What do you think? Read the article. Blog your thoughts.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Voter ID laws
Responding to a Voter ID law in Indiana, the Supreme Court holds that states can constitutionally require voters to show photo identification.
"Democrats and civil rights groups opposed the law as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage elderly, poor and minority voters--those most likely to lack proper ID and who tend to vote for Democrats."
Chief Justice Stevens supports the ruling on the basis that it creates a rational and reasonable method of "protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.'"
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3 comments:
It seems abundantly clear to me that the evidence is scarce on both sides of this case. There appears to be little evidence supporting the need for the law itself or the notion that the law disenfranchises the poor and old:
“Stevens said that Indiana's desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver's license serves as the identification.”
So, the peculiar thing about this case seems to be that there is little evidence to explain why the law itself exists or why the case against it has made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
I think that both the existence of the law and the ACLU’s campaign against it can be explained as almost completely political, rather than practical and rooted in a realistic concern on either side. As the article describes, it was created and passed in the political climate following the 2000 presidential election when voters were concerned about fraud. And though Democrats and civil rights organizations like the ACLU are attacking this law and others like it in states around the country, there is little evidence that anybody is actually being disenfranchised by them.
To me, it seems that the law and the case underscore the very political nature of many statutes and procedures in American law. When we spoke about US sentencing laws last week, we discussed the historic events that led to the creation of strict and harsh incarceration policy. Specifically, the violence of Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights Movement created a climate where voters sought to maintain social stability at all costs. The Republican Party was able to seize on this sentiment and run campaigns based on law and order, and extremely harsh sentencing procedures against nonviolent offenders (Bruce Western). Essentially, it seems that the case of US sentencing procedures and to some degree this case regarding Indiana voting law both highlight the importance of circumstance and political climate in the creation of laws. Consequently, I think it informs us that statutory law is far from supreme and unquestionable. Rather, as active, educated citizens, we must critically examine the historical basis for the legal codes in place and the practical ways in which they affect America’s residents, poor and rich, in order to assess their true validity.
On a different note, what struck me about this situation (and let me preface this by saying I don't know much more about this than what the article explained) was the intersection of the judiciary and the legislative branches that we spoke about in the last CJI meeting.
Coming at this from a "reasonableness" standard, I can understand the notion that requiring voters to present photo identification is a reasonable and constitutional law. The argument that it ostracizes poorer people, who often don't have the money/resources to have photo identification, is a legitimate concern. But from what I can gather thus far, it is a concern that is the responsibility more of the legislature than the judiciary.
I don't mean to say that our government should work in a way where the judiciary makes decisions that create arbitrary burdens on the people, and simply leave those burdens in the hands of other. But, I think the question of when the judiciary oversteps its boundaries and tries to act where the legislature has not acted presents many of these controversial situations. Example being the Court reaching to find voter ID laws unconstitutional because of the number of citizens who do not have a means to obtain a free photo ID, while the situation of citizens not being able to easily access a free form of identification is a problem of the legislature, not of the judiciary.
From what I've read, it seems that the Indiana law also requires that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles provide free photo identification to citizens who do not already have a valid photo ID that meets the requirements.
I think I need to learn more about how obtaining a free form of identification is a difficult task for many citizens to really understand the argument on both sides. But if the legislature responded by creating laws that would help alleviate this difficulty, I feel like the Court wouldn't seem like such a big, bad bully of the poor in this situation.
so, these two articles are pretty relevant to the topic.
the first one is about Missouri legislature trying to pass a state constitutional amendment enabling officials to require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote.
this is a more rigorous demand than the recently upheld Indiana voter ID law:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/politics/12vote.html?scp=2&sq=voter+id+&st=nyt
the second is an editorial claiming that these voting laws are not so much to prevent noncitizens from voting, but rather to make it harder for eligible voters to vote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13tue1.html?scp=1&sq=voter+id+&st=nyt
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