| THE SUPREME COURT of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in the case of Crawford et al v. Marion County Election Board et al today.?The case challenged the constitutionality of the state of Indiana's rule requiring voters to produce a government-issued photo identification proving the voter is who he claims to be prior to being allowed to cast his vote.? I'm an instinctive libertarian.?When there's a policy issue that involves individual liberties, I tend to back the position that favors liberty, unless and until I'm convinced that there's a need to infringe on those liberties for a compelling public good.?As a general rule, the infringement needs to be relatively minor, and the public good particularly strong.? To me, Crawford v. Marion County is pretty much a no-brainer.?SCOTUS got it right.?The integrity of our elections, be they federal, state, or local, is of paramount importance.?Almost any step that improves the reliability of every vote being counted legitimately and accurately is desirable in my estimation.?Transparency in the matter of elections is critical.? The majority of the Justices agreed that "the overall burden (of obtaining a voter ID card) is minimal and justified."?Voters who lack a valid Indiana driver's license can obtain an alternate identification card at no charge from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.? Opponents of the law, principally Democratic Party officials in the state who initiated the suit, argue that the brunt of the burden falls on the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, and minorities.?They cite the inconvenience and expense of obtaining birth certificates and other documentation to verify a voter's identity and are thus unfair to these people. |
| They cite the inconvenience and expense of obtaining birth certificates and other documentation to verify a voter's identity and are thus unfair to these people.? Nonsense.?The right to vote is not unencumbered by certain obligations.?In almost all states, the voter has to report to a polling station to cast his vote.?(Oregon permits ballots to be mailed to the registrar's office.)?In many states, voters are restricted to casting their ballot only for candidates of their party in primary elections.?Citizens who are felons are either denied the privilege of voting, or have to wait a certain period of time to become eligible for the franchise.?Elections are not free-for-alls like voting to kick someone off of American Idol; elections have consequences.? I'm in favor of an idea that most died-in-the-wool libertarians oppose with vehemence: a National Identification Card.?I'm aware of the authoritarian implications of such an ID card.?It robs an individual of a certain amount of privacy, and could open the door to abuse and even further invasions of privacy, but in life, as a friend of mine said in his off-site blog today, it's often a choice of jumping into a hole filled with three feet of poop or one with six.?With as many as 20 million immigrants present illegally in this country, and while we are engaged in combat with militant Islamicists dedicated to our destruction, the compelling interests of the public outweigh the relatively minimal invasion of privacy.? I'm jumping into the three-foot hole ? ? 2008, Kenneth M. Rhodes ???? |
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