Indiana's Photo-Voter ID Law: Much Ado About Little

Indiana, reportedly, has the strictest-in-the-nation voter identification law. We require that a voter show up at the polls with a government-issued, photo identification card, in order to be allowed to vote. Without the ID card, a person may cast a provisional ballot but then must show up within 10 days at their County Clerk’s office with the proper ID. Early in the new year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether Indiana’s law, and similar laws in other states, are constitutional.

Whether you support this law, and others of its ilk, seems to depend on your political philosophy. This seems to hold true for law makers and judges alike. Indiana’s voter ID law was passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor, over a multitude of ringing objections from Democrats.

Indiana’s law was upheld by the 7^th District Court in a 2-1 decision, which broke down on party lines. The two-judge majority were both Republican appointees. Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the majority decision, wrote that the law’s restrictions were not serious enough to violate the constitution. The one Democratic judge, a Bill Clinton appointee, dissented, he wrote: “The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.”

At its best level, the debate here seems to depend on an individual’s political worldview. Which is most important: (a) that everyone who is eligible to vote gets the opportunity to vote or (b) that the integrity of the voting process be protected from possible fraud? If your attitude favors the former, some ineligible voters may cast ballots that count. If you favor the latter view, some voters, without the proper ID, but otherwise eligible, might be denied the opportunity to vote.

At its lowest level, attitudes seem to deteriorate to hard-ball politics with Democrats opposing the law because, when it is enforced, some election-day turnout voters (who tend to vote Democratic) will be denied the opportunity to vote, while Republicans support the law for the same reason.

At present, the Indiana’s voter ID law seems to have little effect on anyone. Democrats have challenged the law as unconstitutional, but have failed to produce even one person who was not permitted to vote because of the ID law. The Republican-led legislature (in 2005) passed the law, even though the state has never prosecuted a case of voter impersonation.