Monday, May 12th, 2008
The New York Times is reporting this morning that the debate over voter ID is moving to Missouri, where lawmakers there may vote to enact proof-of-citizenship requirements at the polls.
All this just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that an Indiana law requiring photo ID at the polls is constitutional. Watch our report for a recap.
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein
One of the most interesting and significant recent Supreme Court decisions concerned the Indiana voter identification law, in which the court by a 6-3 vote upheld the law despite zero evidence of in-person voting fraud in the state. In a major surprise, Justice John Paul Stevens led the opinion, saying the state’s interest in preventing such fraud justifies the Legislature’s action. Stevens did leave the door open to challenges to other states’ laws if they create too much of a burden on many voters.
Indiana’s law was better by far than the awful Georgia law that was overturned by the courts; in Indiana, the state would provide voters with the appropriate government-issue photo ID for free, while Georgia charged a significant fee, the equivalent of a poll tax. But Indiana’s requirements are plenty burdensome.
Elections need to be fair, and fraud is a real concern, especially in an era where the stakes are very high and the parties are close enough that many elections will be decided by razor-thin margins.
If a person cannot present a passport, driver’s license or other similar form of official identification, he or she must supply an official document, such as a birth certificate, to get the free ID, and getting a copy of a birth certificate is quite costly. The fact is that many elderly people and many poor people don’t drive, don’t fly and don’t have copies of their birth certificates. (more…)
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
|
Why Tuesday? Advisory Board member and Vice President for Research at Common Cause Tova Andrea Wang spoke about state voter identification laws at a January 3 press briefing regarding Supreme Court cases Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita. The American Constitution Society hosted the event. If you haven’t already, check out our talk with Loyola Law School William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law Rick Hasen about voter ID (we also take the bus to see how long it would take to get one). Video via acslaw1776 on YouTube. |
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
|
We decided to explore Monday’s Supreme Court ruling which determined that requiring voters to show ID to cast a ballot is constitutional. I visited with election law expert Rick Hasen and hopped on the bus to time how long it would take to get a photo ID to vote if you don’t already have one. |
Monday, April 28th, 2008
It’s always drive-time radio in Los Angeles. I just spent the afternoon maneuvering around this sweltering city, and today’s Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana’s voter identification law was part of a feature segment at least twice this afternoon on NPR member station 89.3 KPCC here.
Rick Hasen of Loyola Marymount University and electionlawblog.org (who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on this case) broke down the specifics of the decision on AirTalk with Larry Mantle (listen here with Real Player). Today Hasen wrote for the Huffington Post that he believes this case “will encourage further litigation, because it relegates challenges to laws imposing onerous burdens on a small group of voters to “as applied” challenges, but those challenges will be difficult to win.”
Patt Morrison also took up the issue on her program (listen here with Real Player). For the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision via the New York Times, click here.
Los Angeles traffic photo via fredcamino on Flickr.
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is an independent, bipartisan commission created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. It will be holding a public meeting in Minnesota on the 16th. The EAC is operates the federal government’s first voting system certification program and is charged with making sure HAVA is executed-as-planned. They also adopt voluntary voting system guidelines that are, well, voluntary, and, according to their website, provide “best practices and resources to election officials throughout the nation.” (more…)
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
Linda Greenhouse, from the Supreme Court, reports for the New York Times that the justices’ actions yesterday indicate they might uphold Indiana’s voter ID law, and further, make it more difficult for similar cases to be brought in the future. She writes:
The justices’ questioning indicated that a majority did not accept the challengers’ basic argument — that voter-impersonation fraud is not a problem, so requiring voters to produce government-issued photo identification at the polls is an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
Stay tuned here for updates. For the complete article and an in-depth analysis, click here.
Previously:
Our Voter ID requirement archive
Why Tuesday? is an effort to make America’s democracy stronger through increased voter participation. We work to make election reform an issue that our politicians cannot afford to avoid.
