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Protecting the public or poll tax?

Will the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold a facial challenge to Indiana's law requiring voters to present a picture ID before they vote have any effect on the vote today? And has the Supreme Court, the last line of defense in upholding individual rights, bought into the Republican's most successful voter suppression scheme?  

The Toledo Blade editorialized yesterday that,  "...the GOP's concocted argument that voter ID requirements are necessary to deter the possibility of voter fraud found a simpathetic audience among the justices."

Republican operatives through an organized strategy in 2005, helped Republican leaning state legislatures, as in Ohio, pass into law restrictive ID requirements. Although the Court, in this case, chose not to see this as a burden to certain minorities, the poor, students and elderly voters, others, including the plaintiffs, perceive it as a kind of "poll tax," that even if the ID were free, could cause other burdens (maybe not understood by those more fortunate).

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Tags: Supreme Court, ID, poll tax, voter suppression, voter fraud (all tags)


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