Voter ID Laws: Return of Jim Crow?

After suspicious events occurred during the last two major US elections, many are concerned about election integrity.

Voter fraud as can be perpetuated via nonverifiable electronic voting machines, where results can be altered. Voter fraud can also occur though voter disenfranchisement, where certain demographics are prevented from getting to the polls in the first place. One way to do this is to require unrealistically complex voter ID. Ironically, the excuse given may be that such IDs prevent "voter fraud," such as people voting multiple times, or placing votes using stolen identity such as that of dead people.

There have been no convincing studies which have showed significant voter ID fraud, including the large bipartisan study. Yet laws continue to be enacted to prevent "voter fraud" via stricter IDs, especially in states where conservatives are in control of government. Recently, the state of Indiana attempted to enact Voter ID legislation. Indiana's Secretary of State maintained that voter fraud happens all the time, but had no instances of proof to offer.

Indiana already had the strictest of the 24 states with voter ID law. Anyone voting must present a current government photo ID. Yet their Solicitor General told the Supreme Court that this was not enough. Indiana Democrats, joined by the ACLU, sued shortly after the voter-ID law was adopted. Both a federal district court and then the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law. It was then taken to the Supreme Court and here is the transcript.

The Supreme Court was sent Indiana's disputed voter ID case to decide, not because of demonstrable voter fraud, but as a "preventative measure" - similar to the logic used for pre-emptive war against someone who "might develop weapons" even though they cannot be shown to have them. Slate wrote about the lack of evidence for actual voter fraud. "Increasingly, the effort to stop fictional vote fraud looks like a partisan effort to suppress votes that tend to go to Democrats—and somehow, it's always indigent, elderly, and minority voters who are disproportionately affected."

Ginsburg and Stevens were the only Justices to even hint that the drive for photo ID law in Indiana is part of a partisan fear that Republicans are worried about Democratic voter fraud, whereas Democrats fear Republican voter suppression to cut down Democratic support. Justice Scalia maintained that clients suffered no actual harm so had no suit. Chief Justice John Roberts observed that no voters were prevented from voting. Roberts asked Smith, representing the clients, whether asking indigent nondrivers to take a 17-mile bus ride to procure the proper ID was that difficult. He noted also Indiana's problem with dead people voting, which certainly would put Indiana at huge risk for voter fraud.

"But there's not a single recorded example of voter impersonation fraud in Indiana," said Smith. The Chief Justice then indicated that 1) Pretend Vote Fraud might one day become real, and 2) Pretend Vote Fraud might be occurring already, but going undetected. Smith explained that those with stolen identity tend to complain, to which Scalia replied that "people who are dead or have moved away aren't coming in and objecting." Justice Alito pointed out that Jimmy Carter and James Baker called for voter ID laws. Justice Bader reminded him that those IDs were supposed to be "easily and costlessly" procured over time. Carter-Baker also reported that 12% of legal voters don't have driver licenses.

Alito asked, "If you concede there can be some kind of voter ID requirement, where do you draw the line?" Smith estimated that at least 200,000 Indiana voters would be affected by the proposed requirement. The solicitor general rose to dispute that number, arguing for 25,000 or less. The rest of the time was spent arguing about whether "facial challenges" were desirable, by which I assume they meant examination of whether the ID "looks like" the person presenting it (which should make voting feel somewhat like being pulled over by a patrolman or being carded in a club).

As the Slate article cited above recapped:

I fear I am counting five justices who believe that a nonexistent problem can be constitutionally cured by burdening the fundamental right to vote. Happy byproduct? Doing away with those pesky facial challenges that liberals like to use to address massive injustices. So in the guise of doing away with hypothetical future challenges to a law, the court is poised to uphold a law that solves hypothetical future problems in voting. And for those of you wondering why the court didn't see fit to release audio for today's monumentally important argument, the answer remains, who knows? But here's one guess: The justices didn't want to be caught on tape sounding like the same 5-4 court that decided Bush v. Gore, even if nothing has changed.

On NPR, the reporter, having no access to audio, simply read from the transcript. This made it self-evident how racist and disturbingly partisan this legislation is in intent. Read about actual "Jim Crow" laws that are part of American history and were used to attempt to legitimize widespread discrimination.