Voter IDs Aren't An Undue Burden

One of the items on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court's new term that began last week is an Indiana voter identification case.

Earlier this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld an Indiana state law that requires voters to present a government-issued photo ID before casting ballots in person. Absentee voters and nursing home residents are exempt.

The plaintiffs claim the photo ID requirement is an 'undue burden on the right to vote,' particularly for the elderly and poor who don't drive or can't afford one. Some of their supporters call such laws a form of 'voter intimidation' and have gone as far as to compare the voter ID law to a poll tax, an 18th-century tactic used to discourage blacks from voting in the South.

That is nonsense. The court noted that none of the plaintiffs argued or presented evidence that they don't intend to vote because of the photo ID requirement, nor did they present citizens who made such claims. The real motivation behind the lawsuit, the court reasoned, was 'simply that the law may require the Democratic Party and the other organizational plaintiffs to work harder to get every last one of their supporters to the polls.'

There is no denying that in the past, officials in many states did use a variety of tactics to get around the Fifteenth Amendment, which prevents states from denying citizens the right to vote based on race.

But this isn't 1865 or even 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was passed to put more teeth in the Fifteenth Amendment. People who want to vote can. They can still go down most Department of Motor Vehicle offices and get a state-issued ID if they don't have a driver's license.

Voting is a fundamental right, but it can be subjected to reasonable restrictions. The purpose of the photo ID law for voters is to prevent fraud at the polls. The Seventh Circuit found the photo ID requirement to be a reasonable regulation on elections, and the Supreme Court should agree.