Supreme Court Upholds Voter Identification Law in Indiana

You nailed it, Paul. A fair ruling and a great opportunity to help potential voters comply with it.

"I tend to favor Democrats at this time but I agree with the ruling."
Have you read the opinions? If you did, do you really agree with Stevens or even Scalias reasoning, for instance that it doesn't matter that the state couldn't prove any case of actual personal vote fraud, or that the widesprewad vote fraud of the 1860s is relevant in this case? Judge Soulter rightly and convincingly exposed this as total spin. Even by their own reasoning, and especially by using Burdick as their most important precendent, those conservative judges supported Soulters arguements. I guess this is one of those incidents where some time in the future the dissent, not the majority opinion, will be viewed as an important milestone.

"It seems to me that both parties might consider this a new opportunity to reach out to these disadvantaged folks and build goodwill by offering them help in getting not only the proper ID but rides to the Polling places and assistance for other necessary services."
And to me it seems the GOP will cry wolf again if the Dems dare to pay for the necessary birth certificates for the elderly. Vote buying, they'll say.
Oops, sry for interrupting your daydreaming!

Gray62,

That there were no proven instances of voter fraud is immaterial. Such proof no bearing in determining the Constitutionality of the law. In any event, no one knows if fraud has taken place or not because there are no mechanisms to detect such fraud.

jiustice Soulter disagrees with you, Andy:
"The statute is unconstitutional under the balancing standard of Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428 (1992): a State may not burden the right to vote merely by invoking abstract interests, be they legitimate, see ante, at 7–13, or even compelling, but
must make a particular, factual showing that threats to its interests outweigh the particular impediments it has imposed. The State has made no such justification here, and as to some aspects of its law, it has hardly even tried."
See? Burdick actually limits the legality of "impediments" to such cases only, where there's a real, factual threat to the process. The state failed to provide such evidence, but the conservative judges ignored this part of the precedent, even though they cited it extensively. That's cherrypicking, and you may call this judicial activism.

And your reasoning that the absence of mechanisms to detect the fraud is questionable: Fitrstly, what are all the poll staffers, and all those databases good for, and secondly, even if there would be a failure of the state to check for fraud, this can hardly be used to his advantage at court.

This advice bothers me, because it reduces those burdened by the ID requirements to being mere pawns in political gamesmansip or to being dependent on the crharitable insticits of others to exeercise their right to vote.
I think a question of personal dignity is involved hare that is being ignored.
Especially for some older blacks, this may be quite reminiscent of the poll tax of years past.

I'm not opposed to the ID per se, but I do oppose a disnussuve attitude towards those who will bear the cost, in money or pride. .