The Supreme Court today voted 6-3 to uphold the common sense practice of Voter ID in the state of Indiana:

The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,’” Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

Now if only all other states would follow suit it might help restore real confidence in our electoral process.

HT: The Page

A while back I had read that the United States Supreme Court was going to take up the matter of Voter Identification. Mind you, I think this is a no brainer.

There are few things one can do in life without some form of ID so I have never understood (not logically) the arguments against doing so when casting a vote in any election.

I did not realize, however, that the case was being heard today.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that raises the question of whether requiring a voter to have a government-issued photo ID unfairly impacts poor and minority voters.

Many question whether the case, which will be decided before the end of the Court’s term in June, will have an impact on the turnout of those voters for the 2008 presidential election.

The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a 2005 Indiana law that would require all voters to show ID before being able to vote. Judge Richard Posner, a prominent judge who sits on the bench in the Seventh Circuit, said it would be impossible for a person to exist in society today without an ID, saying, “Try flying or entering a tall building.”

For those who are interested there is a review of the Supreme Court Docket at Review Journal.

Of the cases referenced the one which will garner the most attention from me involves the Voter ID issue.

• Voter ID: Democrats want the court to toss out state laws that require voters to identify themselves at the polls. Oh, the humanity! Maintaining the integrity of the electoral process is an important matter. The identification requirement is a minimal burden that the justices should uphold.

I believe the states should have the right to decide this issue for themselves. I do not think any court should infringe on decisions made by legislatures in the best interest of their state as long as they do not violate the US Constitution.

The docket does not appear to be overcrowded but as is usually the case, each individual decision will be viewed by certain individuals or groups to be of importance to them. Here are a few of the other issues the Justices will address this session.

The most high-profile case on the court’s calendar is probably one involving Guantanamo detainees. Lawyers for some of those held at the Cuban base will maintain that a U.S. law allowing the indefinite imprisonment of terror suspects should not prevent challenges in U.S. courts to their confinement.

and

• Child porn: Is it a crime to promote child pornography by talking about it even if you don’t possess it? That’s what the justices must determine in a case involving a man whose conviction was overturned after an appeals court ruled that a federal law criminalizing such activity is unconstitutional. The prohibition against actually possessing such images is not at issue.

The balance of the docket may be viewed at the link above.

Personally, I hope so. All this nonsense about disenfranchising certain voters and this being about the color of someone’s skin has gone far beyond sensibility.

When the United States Supreme Court addresses the issue early next year, their ultimate decision could affect elections in this country for years.

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday it would rule on whether U.S. voters must show a government-issued photo identification at the polls, a divisive issue ahead of next year’s national elections.

The justices said they would review a U.S. appeals court ruling that upheld an Indiana law considered the most restrictive in the nation requiring voters to present a photo ID issued by the state or federal government, such as a driver’s license or a passport.

The 2005 law, which applies to both primary and general elections, has been challenged by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Indiana Democratic Party for imposing an unfair burden on the right to vote, especially on the elderly, poor, disabled or homeless.

We desperately need a uniform Voter ID system and one which not only proves who an individual is, but confirms their citizenship.

Until then, I fear almost every election held in this country will be challenged on some level as to its authenticity.

I love it. Fight it out boys and girl.

One Supreme Court justice says his fellow conservatives are “too dismissive” of government efforts to ensure racial diversity in schools. Another more liberal member says those on the right did “serious violence” to a high school student’s free speech rights.

And one conservative slams another for “faux judicial restraint.”

These were some of the heated written exchanges contained in the final decisions handed down by the high court in the last, frantic days of the term.

With justices rushing to finish business in time for summer recess, the luxury of polite, modest jurisprudence often gives way to bare-knuckle rhetoric, preserving for history the evidence of a divided court.

With the liberal bloc narrowly losing a number of high-profile cases this term — including late-term abortion, campaign finance reform, and public school desegregation — the political and legal stakes produced sharper ideological lines.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer all wrote toughly worded dissents, punctuated by reading some of them from the bench. It is a rarely used privilege, reserved for only the biggest, most contentious cases.

“There is very little that dissenters can do. If you don’t have five votes you really don’t have anything,” said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington appellate attorney who has argued many cases before the Supreme Court.

“The one symbolic step that they can take to show they are almost outraged and that they think something terrible has happened is to read these dissents from the bench. And so the fact that the more liberal members of the court have done it is really a sign that they are frustrated.”

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