Ind. Voter ID Law Heads to Supreme Court

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON – The dispute over Indiana’s voter ID law that is headed to the Supreme Court in January is as much a partisan political drama as a legal tussle.

On one side are mainly Republican backers of the law, including the Bush administration, who say state-produced photo identification is a prudent measure intended to cut down on vote fraud. Yet there have been no Indiana prosecutions of in-person voter fraud – the kind the law is supposed to prevent.

On the other side are mainly Democratic opponents who call voter ID a modern-day poll tax that will disproportionately affect poor, minority and elderly voters – who tend to back Democrats. Yet, a federal judge found that opponents of the law were unable to produce evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who had been barred from voting because of the law.

The Supreme Court, which famously split 5-4 in the case that sealed the 2000 presidential election for George Bush, will take up the Indiana law on January 9, just as the 2008 presidential primaries are getting under way.

A decision should come by late June, early enough to be felt in Indiana, Georgia – the other state with a strict photo ID requirement – and a handful of other states in time for the November elections.

The justices will be asked to decide whether the law is an impermissible attempt to discourage certain voters or a reasonable precaution among several efforts aimed at cutting down on illegal voting.