With the 2008 elections on the horizon, the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether an Indiana law that requires voters to have a government-issued photo ID is a security necessity in the post-9/11 world or some sort of partisan plan to suppress voter turnout. | "The Supreme Court will now have the opportunity to right a wrong perpetrated by the GOP as a broader effort to make it harder for some Americans to vote," Donna Brazile, chair of the Democratic National Committee Voting Rights Institute, said. |
But Kevin Martin, a spokesman for the black conservative group Project 21, replied in a statement of his own that "likening the requirement of a credible ID to a poll tax or other Jim Crow-era roadblocks is nothing more than empty rhetoric parroted by partisan
At the center of the controversy is Indiana Public Law 109-2005, which states that before casting a ballot, a voter must show an identification card that displays a photo of the person and his or her name (which must conform with registration records), contains an expiration date, and was issued by the state of Indiana or the U.S. government. Anyone who does not have a driver's license or passport can obtain a free ID card from the state's Bureau of Motor Vehicles after producing a birth certificate or another form of acceptable identification.