Patterico’s Pontifications (a blog I added to the blogroll, BTW) started a contest today, asking readers to fisk a New York Times editorial against an Indiana law that would require voters to have a photo ID.
I took a stab at it in the comments section. But I went through too much work not to put it to double duty, so here it is, below the fold…
Asking for identification at the polls may sound reasonable, but an Indiana law disenfranchises large numbers of people without driver’s licenses, especially poor and minority voters.
They can get an Indiana ID card in lieu of a driver’s license. It’s just $13 for six years.
As long as there have been elections, there have been attempts to keep eligible people from voting.
For example, slashing the tires of vans rented to take voters to the polls, or throwing away the voter registration cards for people registering for a certain party.
During the oral arguments in the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor showed disdain for voters who had trouble with Florida’s disastrous punch-card ballots.
Gee, Florida eight-year-olds were able to figure the ballot cards out. Can you say, “are you smarter than a second-grader?”
The court rejected two successive challenges to gerrymandered Congressional districts. One was Tom DeLay’s brazen redrawing of the lines in Texas, which all but guaranteed a Republican victory and made the voters seem irrelevant.
As opposed to when Texas DEMOCRATS gerrymandered the state in 1991?
