Indiana Voter ID Law
Posted by fredtopeka on May 7, 2008
A while ago I wrote about the Supreme Court decision saying Indiana’s voter ID law was constitutional. One of the reasons Justice Stevens gave for voting that way was that there were no individuals who could show they were disenfranchised. This is no longer true (a longer version is here):
A dozen Indiana nuns were turned away from a polling place by a fellow sister yesterday 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 St. 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, did not get one but came to the precinct anyway. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They were not given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”
But nuns are known everywhere as voter frauds. There is also discussion of this here which calls the consequences mild and then notes that there were also probably dozens of students (who were registered) turned away. I would hope this leads to a new suit.
