Jami Floyd
360 ContributorVoting is not just a political issue. It's a legal one. And a constitutional one. That's why the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on one of the most controversial voting issues of this century: Voter ID Laws.
In a case brought by the Democratic Party and the NAACP, the Court will decide whether Indiana's requirement that voters show identification at the polls is a violation of the right to vote. The question is whether such laws unfairly suppress the vote. The state argues that the requirement is one of many protections in place to prevent election fraud.
Democrats, however, say the Indiana law, and others like it, have a disproportionate effect on poor communities and among minorities and the elderly. Of course, these are voters who tend to vote for Democrats. Buts its interest in the case doesn't make the party wrong about these wrong-headed requirements.
Of course, we need to be very concerned about fraud. But voter ID requirements are eerily reminiscent of polling taxes and literacy tests and the post-reconstruction requirement that black men, long denied an education in this country, sign their names before voting.
The Court is not likely to see it that way. Yesterday's questioning by the Justices strongly suggests that Indiana will win the day, and that democracy will lose.
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