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Supreme Court Upholds Photo ID Voting Law
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Published: April 28, 2008
Filed at 5:04 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a tough state law requiring voters to show photo identification, a decision critics say could keep some blacks, poor people and other traditional Democratic supporters from voting in the November election.

Resolving a partisan political battle, the country's high court voted 6-3 to reject a legal challenge by Democrats that Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation voter identification law would deter minorities, the elderly and others from casting ballots.

The main opinion agreed with Republican supporters that the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud and safeguard public confidence in the integrity of elections. The Bush administration supported the law.

The court handed down the ruling just eight days before the crucial Indiana presidential primary election featuring Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. If elected in November, Obama would be the first black U.S. president, while Clinton would be the first female U.S. president.

"The effect of the loss ... will begin to be felt next week when Indiana holds its presidential primary using the voter ID law the court has just upheld," said Nathaniel Persily, an election law expert at Columbia University in New York.

The decision could have broad national significance because more than 20 states have adopted voter identification laws and other states are considering similar legislation.

The law requires a government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license to vote in federal, state and local elections.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Republican, said the timing of the ruling was good because it was the first time since 1968 that Indiana's presidential primary had mattered and voter registrations had surged this year.

In seven elections since Indiana put the law into place, the requirement "hasn't been an issue," based on complaints to his office, Rokita said.

Reaction to the ruling split along political lines.

"This decision not only confirms the validity of photo ID laws but it completely vindicates the Bush Justice Department" when it approved a similar Georgia law, said former department official Hans von Spakovsky.

Democrats sharply criticized the ruling.

DENIES A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

"Denying a fundamental right -- the right to vote -- because a person is indigent, lacks a birth certificate or has no access to a vehicle goes against America's better values," Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said.

Angela Ciccolo of the NAACP civil rights group said the law would have its greatest impact on voters who are poor, elderly, belong to racial minorities or have disabilities.

The lead opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, held the evidence in the record did not support an attack now on the law's validity.

Three other court members -- conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, concurred in the judgment and issued a separate opinion that the law should be upheld because its overall burden was minimal and justified.

Stevens wrote that states had a "valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process." He said voter fraud "could affect the outcome of a close election."

He said the law may place a small burden on a limited number of people -- the elderly born out-of-state who may have difficulty in getting the required documents, the homeless or people with a religious objection to being photographed.

Stevens said politics may have been a factor in adopting the law but that alone did not make it unconstitutional. His opinion left open the possibility of future legal challenges by specific voters.

Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented. Souter said the law threatened to impose major burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of Indiana residents, especially the poor and the elderly.
Supreme Court to Hear Voter ID Case
By MARK SHERMAN | Associated Press Writer
10:47 AM EDT, September 25, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether voter identification laws unfairly deter the poor and minorities from voting, stepping into a contentious partisan issue in advance of the 2008 elections.

The justices will hear arguments early next year in a challenge to an Indiana law that requires voters to present photo ID before casting their ballots. The state has defended the law as a way to combat voter fraud.

The state Democratic party and civil rights groups complained that the law unfairly targets poor and minority voters, without any evidence that in-person voter fraud exists in Indiana. The party argued that those voters tend to be Democrats.

Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona and Michigan, but struck down Missouri's. Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a challenge to Georgia's voter identification law, saying the statute does not impose a significant burden on the right to vote.

Election law experts had urged the court to take the Indiana case to instruct courts on how to weigh claims of voter fraud versus those of disenfranchisement. "The court better resolve this question before ballots start getting counted next fall," said Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan.

The court is expected to issue a decision by late June, in time for the November general election.

The Indiana law enacted in 2005 was upheld by a federal judge and by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Before the law's passage, an Indiana voter had only to sign a poll book at the polling place, where a photo copy of the voter's signature was kept on file for comparison.

"The purpose of the Indiana law is to reduce voting fraud, and voting fraud impairs the right of legitimate voters to vote by diluting their votes," Judge Richard Posner said in his majority opinion.

But in a dissent, Judge Terence Evans said, "Let's not beat around the bush. The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by folks believed to skew Democratic."

The voter ID challenge was among 17 new cases accepted by the court in advance of the start of its new term on Monday.

The cases are Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 07-21, and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, 07-25.

Mail-In Voters Become the Latest Prize
NYTIMES
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: January 14, 2008

LOS ANGELES — The first Tuesday in February, when 22 states hold primaries, may turn out to be the biggest day of the presidential campaign. But for many voters, half or more in some states, the polling place will be the kitchen table, the ballot box will be the mailbox and the choice in many cases will be made weeks before a voting machine lever is pulled.

In California, the biggest prize on Feb. 5, state election officials estimate that more than half of voters may vote by mail, which has forced campaigns to adjust their strategies and has some political observers worried that people may make hasty choices they may later regret.

Mail ballots went out last week, and some campaigns have been stepping up efforts to reach voters before they open the mailbox.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, campaigned here last Friday with a policy-heavy speech intended in part to attract such voters, her aides said, and then spent time with campaign workers in San Diego calling potential early voters.

Campaign workers for Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, made 300,000 calls to potential voters in the last week and the candidate is expected to make a two-day visit to California this week.

“We believe we are in a good position to capture early voters because a large slice of absentees are independent or ‘decline to state’ voters,” said Debbie Mesloh, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign in California, noting that surveys of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire suggested that Mr. Obama had done well with such unaffiliated voters.

The campaign of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, a Republican, has long focused on states like California, New York and Florida, which have large numbers of delegates and allow early voting. His being well known coupled with workers who are calling voters to help explain voting-by-mail procedures could give him a boost, aides said.

“We talk to voters about the legal procedure and the way to vote by mail,” said Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for the Giuliani campaign in California. Mr. Giuliani, he said, has made 12 visits and spent 31 days in the state in the past year, he said.

Officials in Florida, where the primary is Jan. 29, report an increase in requests for absentee ballots, attributing it largely to the closeness of the races in both parties. About 42 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of Republicans in the state have requested absentee ballots.

Officials in New Jersey, which moved its primary to Feb. 5 from March, anticipate large numbers of mail-in voters if only because of the potential for bad weather. “There’s never been a primary in New Jersey in the winter before,” said David Wald, a spokesman for Attorney General Anne Milgram, whose office directs elections in the state.

Nationwide, 31 states allow some form of early voting with “no excuse required,” and analysts say interest in voting by mail has increased mainly because it is more convenient than going to, and sometimes waiting in line, at a polling place. Several states in the last decade have changed their laws to allow all voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason, as opposed to limiting it to the infirm or those who will be out of town. (New York, whose primary is Feb. 5, requires voters to state a reason when they apply for an absentee ballot, leading political professionals to speculate that such voting by mail will not be as large a factor there as in other states.).

Early voting adds another layer of complication to the already frenetic, far-flung campaign. Well-financed campaigns are in better position to take advantage of this dynamic by having more to spend on phone banks, mailings and other tactics to specifically target these voters.

It makes for an “extensive, grueling and expensive get-out-the-vote operation,” said Paul Gronke, a political science professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who is an expert on early voting. Mr. Gronke said surveys had shown that voters who use absentee ballots tend to be older, more affluent, better educated and more partisan.

Advocates for mail-in voting say it fits modern lifestyles.

“I think it is a reflection of people’s busy lives and the complications of child care, weather and traffic as well as the complexity of our ballots,” said Debra Bowen, California’s secretary of state, and a supporter of voting by mail. “Very often, there will be 10 or 15 initiatives that are so complicated, so people will sit at the kitchen table and if they get stuck on something, they can step away or they can call somebody.”

But some people in politics are troubled by the trend. They say it increases the pressure on candidates to raise money to support early get-out-the-vote efforts. They also say that votes could be wasted on a candidate who drops out after voters mailed in their ballots before primary day.

“Quite frankly, I think they should do away with early voting except for people who are bed-ridden or out of the state,” said Randy Pullen, chairman of the Republican Party in Arizona, where 48 percent of the ballots cast in the last statewide election, in 2006, were mailed. Balloting there began Jan. 10 for the Feb. 5 primary.

“During the 30-day cycle, when you can pick up a ballot and vote, a lot of things can happen,” he said. “Thirty days is a lifetime in an election cycle. People regret their vote and wish they could change it. Look at New Hampshire. The way you might have voted two days before Hillary had her emotional display might have been different than the way you’d have voted after.”