Young activists mobilize against voter ID law: File Supreme Court amicus brief

Source: The Politico

By: Ben Adler
Jan 21, 2008

Opponents of Indiana’s law requiring voter identification at the polls usually argue it places an unfair burden on the poor, the elderly, minorities, inner-city residents and the disabled. But some activists predict another group will be affected in November: young people and college students.

A coalition of youth groups including Rock the Vote and the National Black Law Students Association filed an amicus brief to the Indiana state Democratic Party lawsuit urging the Supreme Court to find the law unconstitutional. “The Indiana case has far-reaching consequences for students and other young people who move frequently, making current ID hard to come by, or who do not possess a driver's license,” wrote Alexandra Acker, executive director of the Young Democrats of America....

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Democrats and voting rights advocates suggest that laws like Indiana’s are passed by Republican state legislatures to gain partisan advantage, since the groups at risk of being disenfranchised all skew Democratic. But conservative jurists, such as Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, have found that such laws are not unconstitutional merely because of a partisan outcome.

Critics of the law also question their necessity, pointing out that there has never been a documented case of in-person voter fraud in Indiana. A November study from the nonpartisan research institution Demos found that provable instances in other states of voter fraud were very rare....

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8001.html

The current SCOTUS was specifically chason for it's canine fidelity to neocon views. Their decision will be whatever Cheney tells them.

I do not understand this hysteria over showing an ID when voting. Even poor people who receive government services must show ID, both to apply for services and to cash "welfare" checks. Same with elderly and SS application and check cashing. As far as I know, homeless people must show ID to stay at shelters. I routinely had to show my voter registration card along with driver's license when voting in Fla. BFD.

My SSDI check is wired directly into my checking account. No one at my bank calls me for ID each month. It has been the same for all three states I've lived in for the past fifteen years.

Although I mostly use my debit/credit card for purchases, I occassionaly will write a check. I have yet to be asked for ID for the checks I have written.

I do not have a drivers license. I am paralyzed and have a seizure disorder, therefore do not drive.

Btw, it is a BFD when one is poor, to obtain a fed ID. It cost to order a birth certificate, it cost for transportation to get to a DMV and it cost for the ID.

It is a poll/voting tax no matter how you look at it.

I always had my "permanent" ID. Driver's license or state-issued ID, but always for the state I really considered myself to reside in. I might have been in Delaware for 8 months out of the year, but 'home' was Maryland; it's where I returned to whenever the dorms were closed, and sometimes during the school year.

Of course, it would have been a bear to get DE ID in September, Maryland ID in June, DE ID in September ... etc. And it would have been a bear to notify the DMV (or whoever) whenever I changed rooms in the dorm.

It's why I would have voted absentee in MD.

And it makes me wonder how many students who have completely and totally moved to their new state for college get new IDs, close their bank accounts in their former state, etc., etc. The kinds of things I needed to do to establish residency in California.