Court Appears Reluctant to Strike Down Voter ID Law
In a post entitled “The Partisan Elephant Unnoticed in the Room,” SCOTUSblog describes how liberal and conservative justices differed today over their approach to Indiana’s voter ID law, the subject of a bitter dispute between Republicans and Democrats.
The justices heard oral arguments today over the facial challenge to the constitutionality of the law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Republicans say the law is needed to combat voter fraud while Democrats say it is designed to keep their voters from going to the polls.
Conservative members of the court either tried to find a way to throw out the case on standing grounds, put off a decision and wait for an as-applied challenge, or salvage the law, the blog reports. Liberals, on the other hand, appeared to favor deciding the case now, in a way that softens the law’s impact on minority voters.
Swing voter Anthony M. Kennedy appeared to be seeking a middle ground, the Washington Post reports. He asked whether other states requiring voter IDs had found ways that voters without them could still cast their ballots. Both the Post and the Associated Press report that the court appears reluctant to strike down the law in its entirety.
The only direct mention of the partisan divide came from Justice John Paul Stevens, who asked whether it was relevant that the legislature had split along party lines when it adopted the bill and that the bill could have an adverse impact on Democrats.
