Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Battle of New Orleans

Last April, the Supreme Court uphold an Indiana voter ID law which disenfranchised folks for literally no tangible reason. The intangible reason was to prevent voter fraud. I call that reason "intangible" because Indiana had never, in its history, had a prosecuted case of voter fraud of a form this law would address. Indeed, the state had seen voter fraud in absentee balloting before, so naturally, absentee ballots were exempt from the law. It was a rare case of the Supreme Court allowing a fundamental right to burden based on nothing more than mythology and Republican hysterics. Not their proudest moment.

But having lost the war, it looks like voting rights advocates may have nonetheless managed to win a battle after the fact. The Indiana Court of Appeals has struck down the voter ID law the US Supreme Court upheld, holding it to be a violation of the state constitution by not treating all voters alike (particularly with regards to the aforementioned exception for absentee ballots).

More coverage here and here. Also worth noting is that this is an intermediate appellate opinion, so it can and likely will be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

1 comment:

Matthew said...

Wait... wait. My state managed to do something *right* in a judicial capacity?

I'm pleasantly shocked.