Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Compel This!

Monday the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, upheld Indiana's voter ID law. You remember that one: the law which was justified to combat voter fraud, despite the fact that Indiana has never had a voter fraud prosecution in the history of the state? Now, to be fair, Indiana did recently have a problem with fraud in a local mayoral election. But it was perpetuated by absentee ballots -- the only type of voting exempted from the voter ID requirement. In general, the voter fraud "epidemic" is a myth used to suppress legitimate voting by Democratic-leaning voters. So we have a situation where the "interest" Indiana uses to pass a voter-suppression law is literally mythological. Maybe we can convince Maryland to pass a law prohibiting Republicans from voting on the grounds that they're more likely to secretly be fire-breathing dragons. It's no less removed from reality.

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