MUST READ: in less than a month the US Supreme Court hears arguments that COULD DECIDE 2008 election

[nashville_brook]

http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/will-the-supreme-court-decide-the-2008-election/?hp

Will the Supreme Court Decide the 2008 Election?

By The Editorial Board

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.

(snip)


also today, the Boston Globe editorial page has this:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/12/13/voter_fraud_fraud/

Voter fraud fraud
December 13, 2007

IT MADE for a tantalizing news story: Thousands of people who cast votes in the 2004 presidential election in New Jersey were actually dead. Newspapers wrote articles with grabber headlines like "GOP Sees Dead People" and "Dead Man Voting." Except that a more careful analysis of the allegations found flaws in the match between the voting rolls and death lists, and none of the claims was ever substantiated.


New Jersey's state Republican Party also claimed that 4,397 people had voted twice in 2000, and another 6,572 voted both in New Jersey and in one of five other states. But a systematic review by the Brennan Justice Center at New York University Law School found most of the matches ignored different middle names, dates of birth, or other discrepancies. All told, the center found that eight of the 3.6 million New Jersey voters in 2004 intentionally cast invalid votes - a "fraud rate" of four ten-thousandths of one percent.

These fraud alarm bells - even if they are false alarms - distract Americans from real problems in the democratic process, from electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail to campaign tactics that confuse or intimidate voters. Also, supposed fraud is often used to build support for stiffer voter requirements, such as government-issued IDs, which would almost surely drive down participation among poorer, older, and less-educated voters. "The voter fraud phantom drives policy that disenfranchises legitimate voters without a corresponding benefit," the Brennan Center's report concludes.

(snip)

In fact, voter fraud is a remarkably inefficient way to steal an election. So many individual acts need to be coordinated - each with its own risk of discovery - that the cost is greater than the likely benefit. And yet lurid tales of massive fraud continue. It's enough to make a citizen wonder if what's really going on is an attempt at voter suppression.

READ THE FULL BRENNAN LAW CENTER REPORT HERE:
http://www.brennancenter.org/stack_detail.asp?key=97&subkey=50848

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. They tried this in MO too

and the state supreme court threw it out. I think GA's law got tossed out too.

I have written here about my own 81 year old mother who got caught up in this and wasn't able to vote.

Most voter ID laws are poll taxes. If you have to pay even a dime to get a copy of your birth certificate to get that picture ID, then it's a poll tax.

Good luck to Indiana. :hi:

[nashville_brook]

6. there's a LOT of press on this today -- see links here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x487476

[Bitwit1234]

2. And suppose you don't have a birth certificate

In some states they are hard to come by. A lot of states until after 1930 didn't require you to register a birth. I do a lot of genealogy research and found this out. Now how can a person get that birth certificate. To get an ID you need the birth certificate, marriage license, if a woman and of course letters or something to that effect addressed to you.

Not only is this cumbersome it is very very expensive to people who live on social security. It takes is most cases up to six months to get copies of these birth certificates. And they cost up to 25.00. That might not seem like much to the millionaire republicans who enacted the law but it might mean the difference of food or medicine to a senior. And in some cases since they don't drive, and a lot of places have no public transportation how would they get to the places to get the ID in the first place.

And that's why the republicans enacted it. They knew this would happen and that most of the voters who would have trouble getting and paying for these ID's would be Democrats and they wanted to be sure they couldn't vote.

[nashville_brook]

4. here's the language from the (dem party) lawsuit addressing this!

“Primary documents” can be hard to procure for
some Indiana voters, particularly for those born out
of State. For example, Theresa Clemente, a
nondriver who moved from Massachusetts to Indiana
in 1991, testified that, when she learned of the new
law, she made three trips to the BMV to get a state-issued
photo ID, with no success.

On her first visit, Ms. Clemente brought her Social Security
card, her voter-registration card, a property tax bill,
a utility bill, and a credit card, but was told she
needed a copy of her birth certificate.

On her second visit, Ms. Clemente brought a copy of her
Massachusetts birth certificate, but was told she
needed a certified copy. She sent away to Boston
for a certified copy, but was told it would cost $28.00.
She then sent in another request, along with a
check, and 14 days later she received the certified
copy.

On her third trip to the Indiana
BMV, Ms. Clemente was told she needed a certified
copy of her marriage certificate, because her birth
certificate showed only her maiden name, Theresa
Grady.

After this entire process — which she
described as “humiliating, time consuming, and
extremely frustrating” — Ms. Clemente still had no
photo ID and thus no ability to cast a vote that would
be counted.

[BlueIris]

3. Kick. Hello? Little more important than the primary wars.

[nashville_brook]

5. this is how we get screwed every election cycle -- watch the shiny, twirling objects

pay no attention to the wizards behind the curtain.

[dragonlady]

7. They keep trying to require this in Wisconsin too

Luckily we have a Democratic governor with a good veto pen. If this should be decided against us in the Supreme Court, the action will move to the states. Such a decision would only allow the states to have this photo ID requirement, not mandate it. We have to do our best to prevent it.

[nashville_brook]

8. it's imporatant, too, that Dems understand the nature of the Rethug strategy.

[nashville_brook]

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[nashville_brook]

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