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 Some showed up with outdated passports.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.

Horror! Indiana Voters Must Show Photo ID

A regular constitutional crisis.

Now if we can only get this enforced in the other 49 states, there'd be a lot of dead Democrats no longer voting.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush mirrored.

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

mean old Republicans. How dare they want to enforce a common-sense law!

Update: Predictable reaction from one of the Kos Kidz.

In a case reflecting a solution truly in search of a problem, and opening the door to all sorts of harassment for minority, elderly and other traditionally Democratic voters, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today that Indiana could legally require all voters to present photo identification cards in order to vote.

In other words, you better let us continue ballot fraud.

Assorted adult reaction here.

NY Times: Requiring Voter ID Harsh, Extraordinarily Strict

The new York Times editors are doing a bit of preemptive whining before the 2008 election.

You would think by the rhetoric voters would be required to hand over their first born before they're able to vote.

All of it over Indiana requiring valid identification.

The horror of it all.

Minorities, poor, elderly and handicapped hardest hit, of course.

In 2000, the Supreme Court decided that George W. Bush was the winner. In 2008, the court may once again have something to say about the election — but this time, it may do it before the votes are even cast.

The court will hear oral arguments next month in a critically important election case. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board is a challenge to Indiana’s harsh voter ID law.

The law, pushed through by Republicans in 2005, requires registered voters who cast ballots in person to provide current government-issued photo ID.

Indiana’s law is extraordinarily strict: it requires voters to have not just photo ID, but very specific forms of it — most likely a driver’s license or an ID card issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

At first blush, voter ID laws may not seem so unreasonable. But the fact is, a substantial number of Americans who are registered to vote do not have official government photo IDs. That is particularly true of poor people, racial minorities, the elderly, and the disabled — many of whom do not drive and do not have drivers’ licenses.

My heart just breaks. An effort to prevent voter fraud is being decried by the same people who turned a blind eye to voter fraud, most often by Demmocrats.

Well, these folks have 11 months to get their act together. If they can't get a valid government ID in that time, it's their problem.

The piece continue in heart-tugging fashion.

If the 2008 election is close, Americans will be looking at things like the decision in this case to figure out what provided the victory margin. It would be tragic if a sharply divided Supreme Court decided a presidential election for the second time in eight years.