Democracy?

The last seven years have been a scary time. We've seen so many horrors that the mind sometimes simply fogs up, and it's hard to keep them in any sort of remotely clear focus: the pointless slaughter in Iraq, the violation of civil liberties, torture, the suppression of sound science, the failure to heed the warnings before 9/11, the shameful indifference to the needs of veterans, the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the growing control of our government by corporate lobbies--the dreary list goes on and on.

Last week a new bit of right-wing nastiness passed across our newspapers and computer screens; it ought to be getting more attention. This was the decision of the United States Supreme Court in favor of an Indiana law requiring voters to furnish a picture ID before voting. Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? In fact, it's a transparent Republican maneuver to suppress the votes of people--the poor, African-Americans, the elderly--that traditionally vote Democratic.

The important point to bear in mind is that there is absolutely no evidence that voter fraud is a problem. There is no plot among any group of voters to cast fraudulent votes. It doesn't happen. There is no need for this law. It does not address a current or imminent threat.

So why was it passed? For one reason and one reason only. The republican-controlled Indiana legislature knows that many elections are decided by narrow margins. If they can keep a few voters from the polls or make voting more difficult, they could swing an election. And they also know that the voters who currently do not have a photo ID are overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic. According to Professor Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University, roughly 11% of the population lacks a picture ID that would satisfy the requirements of this law (see here). And it's obvious that the people without driver's licenses and passports are not your typical Republican voters.

This law is so brazen in its intent to disenfranchise certain segments of the American electorate that you have to go back to the poll taxes and other nefarious mechanisms of the Jim Crow South to find a parallel. It's one more Republican effort to steal elections they cannot win on the issues.