VOTER ID. Everyone agrees that only eligible voters should vote, but how do you confirm eligibility in a way that’s not overly burdensome to voters? How do you define “overly burdensome?” How do you weigh the burden on voters vs. the state’s interest in protecting election integrity? When does a voter ID requirement burden a segment of voters disproportionately, thus becoming discriminatory? These were among the questions in the SCOTUS decision (2008) in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.
In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring those voting in person to show government-issued photo ID. The law was challenged for violating the 14th Amendment and unduly burdening the right to vote. The procedures for getting an ID were overly onerous and costly for low-income and elderly voters who lacked driver’s licenses. One SCOTUS justice argued that “Indiana had the burden of producing actual evidence of the existence of fraud, as opposed to relying on abstract harms, before imposing an unreasonable and irrelevant burden on voters who are poor and old.”
The defendants argued the law was necessary to prevent voter impersonation at the polls but were unable to present any evidence that the fraud motivating the law actually existed.
SCOTUS upheld lower court decisions that the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud justified any burdens placed on voters.
The law was later struck down in state court for violating the Indiana Constitution, but the SCOTUS decision signaled the court’s direction. Its decision about this Indiana law preceded its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder that gutted a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and ushered in a slew of restrictive voter ID laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_v._Marion_County_Election_Board?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3uO3c5LPNTwOp6Ea7kDw9rs8vF1dQeoBS_fhI06kzLhbXaMHDOucoJlY8_aem_ARBnLYQFhL2STHGKTXcoxwLJrpw9gf98e2Ns6QdLBEtxIRxEkL0yOZcSrtXkTo1xzdsYTsNYnBHitkYUa_rqqoIL