Voter ID Loss Could Have ‘Sweeping’ Impact on Election Challenges

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U.S. Supreme Court

Voter ID Loss Could Have ‘Sweeping’ Impact on Election Challenges

Posted Jan 10, 2008, 09:10 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Opponents of Indiana’s voter ID law may not only lose their case in the U.S. Supreme Court, they may also make it more difficult to challenge any new state election regulations before they take effect.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the justices in oral arguments yesterday to reject the facial challenge to the law and wait for an as-applied challenge by someone who is actually harmed by the requirement for a photo ID, the New York Times reports.

The court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been skeptical of facial challenges to laws, especially in the abortion area, the story says. Yet such challenges are standard when attacking voting restrictions.

“There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case,” the Times article says, “and by the end of an argument before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who are challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.”

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