There is a blueprint for the noisy debate at the State Capitol over photo ID, but it isn't one that opponents of the proposed voting requirement would embrace.
Crawford vs. Marion County Election Board is a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that touched on many of the arguments being wielded at the Capitol this year. The court, divided pretty much the way the Minnesota Legislature is, voted 6-3 to uphold the constitutionality of Indiana's photo ID law.
Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, sponsor of Minnesota's proposal, has quoted the Crawford case as his model.
Indiana's 2005 law was then one of the strictest in the nation. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the majority opinion, said Indiana has an interest "in deterring and detecting voter fraud." He cited a 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, that generally supported photo ID cards for voting.
Stevens admitted one weakness is faced by photo ID supporters -- that no evidence was presented of voters impersonating others, which an ID could stop. But he said there was evidence of other types of fraud, including historic cases and the 2003 Democratic primary in East Chicago, Ind.
Stevens also said the Indiana law had important safeguards, including the right of voters lacking the proper ID to cast a provisional ballot at the polls -- and then to show the proper ID at county offices within 10 days to have the vote counted. He also noted a provision for no-ID absentee voting for elderly voters.
Stevens quoted a lower-court judge who said those challenging the law had "not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote" because of the law.
Justice David Souter, writing the dissent, said there was no evidence of the kind of impersonation fraud an ID prevents; that the ID presents a barrier to voting for poor, elderly and disabled voters; and that expenses and arrangements for underlying documents such as birth certificates create an even greater barrier.
Souter disparaged the idea of casting a provisional ballot without ID and then returning to county offices to show the necessary ID or sign an affidavit within 10 days, saying that double vote is an additional burden for people with little means or transportation.
As for the Carter-Baker commission's support of ID laws, Souter pointed out that their support was conditioned on a phase-in period in which the state would try to make sure all registered voters had the necessary ID before imposing the requirement at the polls.
It was a divisive case. All six votes in favor of the constitutionality of photo ID were cast by Republican-appointed justices; the only two Democratic-appointed justices joined Souter, a Republican-appointed justice and swing vote, in arguing that it was unconstitutional. That partisan divide has pretty much held true at the State Capitol, where photo ID appears to have unanimous Republican support but little from DFLers.
