Sorry, Sister: ID-Less Nuns Denied Vote in Indiana, NYT Wails

Look at the bright side, the nuns have until November to work something out in time for the general election.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives [sic].

They're positively hysterical at the NYT Editor's Blog.

The Supreme Court last month upheld Indiana’s harsh voter ID law, which requires voters to present government-issued photo ID — something many registered voters don’t have.

The Justices were blithely unconcerned about the many people who would lose their voting rights as a result of their decision. And they seemed skeptical that such people even existed.

“‘[T]he evidence in the record does not provide us with the number of registered voters without photo identification,” the lead opinion said. The court did not find the evidence it wanted of “the burden imposed on voters who currently lack photo identification.”

They conveniently fail to note liberal stalwart John Paul Stevens authored the opinion.

And since when did they care the slightest bit about anyone in the church?

The nuns were only a few of the people in Indiana deprived of their right to vote today.

Where is the evidence to support that assertion?

Nobody is being deprived of any rights. By law you must show valid identification and it's clearly spelled out, caterwauling from the NY Times pinheads notwithstanding.

If activists were so concerned about rights being deprived they would have been prepared for an opinion to go against them and had a Plan B.

Instead, they don't get carte blanche from the Supreme Court to commit widespread voter fraud and we're left with tear jerking stories of 98-year-olds nuns.

Of course, if the folks at the Times just read reputable papers in their own city, they'd know they're well, full of it.

Indiana took this seriously in 2005 and landed in court. But the state also made it as easy as possible to get identification. A state photo ID is free for the poor. Critics complain that the prerequisite, a birth certificate, costs money. But the law says older people, those most likely to lack such a paper, don't need it. They can use their Medicare cards or a half-dozen other documents. Lacking any, a voter simply can swear to a court clerk that he's broke. Critics are reduced to saying the lack of universal bus service to the license office is a grievous barrier.

"There's always some incidental costs to voting — you can't come to the polls naked," an Indianapolis law professor, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, who served on the task force that wrote the rules, says. The remarkable thing is that for all the talk of disenfranchisement, Indiana has had seven elections since, and those challenging the law have yet to turn up a plaintiff who credibly can say the law stymied him, Mr. Hakim-Shabazz says.

But the AP sure found some old nuns in a hurry.

Update: Michelle Malkin links. Thanks! She's got a great roundup tonight.