Supreme Court to Throw Another Election?

Gloating about doing wrong is a higher degree of venality than just committing evil. Several Republican judges openly acknowledge that the Indiana law--and 23 others like it, enacted in other states--will hurt the Democrats, but nevertheless champion such laws. Judge Richard Posner, who wrote in the majority opinion upholding the Indiana law for the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, affirmed that "no doubt most people who don't have photo ID are low on the economic ladder and thus, if they do vote, are more likely to vote for Democratic than Republican candidates" and that "the new law injures the Democratic Party by compelling the party to devote resources to getting to the polls those of its supporters who would otherwise be discouraged by the new law from bothering to vote." Now the Republican-dominated Supreme Court seems inclined to follow suit --and rule that these laws are constitutional.

If the highest court in the land will indeed allow these discriminatory laws to stand, if it will continue to be so blatantly partisan, the people will have few choices other than impeach some of these judges or increase the number of judges on the court, as Roosevelt threatened to do, in order to add some progressive judges.
At first it may seem that the Indiana law, and others like it, are politically neutral. All these laws require is that each voter present a state issued form of ID, photo included. However, in effect these laws are about as discriminatory against the elderly, the poor, the less educated and minorities as the old literacy tests and poll tax laws. These social groups contain most of the voters who have no such ID cards and who do not have the means to go and acquire them. (For instance, consider senior citizens in nursing homes, who would have to find their birth certificates, have them validated, and present them in state offices to get their photo IDs). Indeed it is estimated that more then ten percent of Americans-- some 21 million people! - have no such IDs, and most belong to these vulnerable groups, which tend to lean toward the Democrats. Given that elections are often tight, disenfranchising more than one out of ten voters is enough to throw many elections. Given that the electoral voters of a few states, even one, can decide an election, affecting the elections in 24 states goes a long way to favor the Republicans.
Those who favor the Indiana-like voter ID laws, for instance the right wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, argue that electoral fraud must be prevented, and IDs are a good way to proceed. (The same ideologues go ballistic when ID cards are suggested for other purposes). However, strong data shows that there is next to no voter fraud due to misidentification--and fairly wide abuse due to ballot box stuffing, voter machine manipulation, registration list manipulation and absentee balloting.
The Supreme Court already greatly endangered its legitimacy when it in effect granted the elections to Bush over Gore. If it will turn partisan in this case, its legitimacy will be further undermined in an age when the national executive and national legislature--think Bush and Congress--are already much distrusted. It is crucial for American democracy that at least the highest court be considered fair. Hopefully the justices will see the light and reject the Indiana and other such voter ID laws. If not, as unappealing such a line of action is, the people will have to act, by either impeaching Scalia and company or adding some progressive judges to balance the court, and to set it right.

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