Carded at polls: No photo ID, no vote

The Bush administration has endorsed the measure before the Supreme Court, saying it is necessary to prevent fraud - specifically, to prevent voters from impersonating someone else at the polls, according to an amicus brief filed by the U.S. Justice Department.

Yet nonpartisan organizations including the Brennan Center, which studies voter issues, know of no one in the country who has been prosecuted for such a crime. The federal government does not keep such statistics.

"There are tens of millions of people in this country who don't have this type of identification. It's hard for middle-class people to understand that," said Michael Waldman, the center's executive director. The group filed a friend-of-the-court brief, along with the League of Women Voters, the ACLU and the NAACP, against Indiana's Marion County Election Board and Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who serves on two advisory boards to the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Election officials in Ohio, home to prolonged battles over electronic voting machines, also filed an amicus brief supporting opponents of the Indiana law, saying it created a hardship for voters.

"Instead of creating barriers to voting, people should be asking how to make it easier for people to vote who have the right to vote," said Waldman. "Not everyone has a car. And if you don't have a car, you don't have a driver's license."

In New York City, for example, where subways and buses abound, only 45 percent of residents have photo IDs that would comply with the Indiana law, said Waldman, citing local surveys.

Rokita said the law is intended to encourage "faith in the election process, and in the integrity of it. Identify theft is the fastest-growing problem in America."

He acknowledges there have been no prosecutions for impersonating a voter. "But we still have a right to protect ourselves against the possibility of voter fraud," he said.

Civil rights activists say such protection is a form of discrimination.

The Indiana law "will effectively fence out of the electorate significant numbers of African-Americans," says a brief filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. It also "will have a particularly burdensome impact in the places where impoverished African-Americans are concentrated."

In the other states with photo-ID laws, voters can present other forms of ID - such as a Social Security card, a utility bill or a student ID bearing a photograph- or they can sign an affidavit affirming their identity.

But Indiana voters lacking photo identification must fill out a so-called "provisional ballot." It is not counted until the person reappears within 10 days (at the voter's county seat, not where they voted), bringing proper ID or affirming their identity by signing an affidavit. However, such ID is not required when registering to vote.

"Voter ID laws ostensibly deal with voter impersonation," said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University who last year helped prepare a report on the subject for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. "But that effectively never happens. If you're gonna cheat, the easiest way is to do so through mail-in ballots. You'd have to be a fool to go to the polls and pretend to be someone else. What would you gain?"

Voters who use mail-in ballots are not required to show photo ID.

This particularly irks 92-year-old Mary Wayne Montgomery Eble, who lives on a family farm outside tiny Rockport, Ind., nestled on the Ohio River. She does not want to vote by mail; she wants to vote in person, as she has for decades. She considers it her civic duty; her mother was a suffragette.

But Eble cannot do so in this election. She let her driver's license lapse because she could no longer see well enough to drive. To get a state photo ID card, which would allow her to vote, she would have to produce a certified copy of her birth certificate.

Eble was born at home; she doesn't know if she has a birth certificate.

The bureaucracy she would have to navigate is intimidating to an elderly woman in a rural enclave who must rely on her grandchildren for travel.

"I'm 92 years old," she said. "I'm on oxygen, this weather is killing me. I just don't have the strength to talk about this any more."

The cost of a birth certificate stands in the way of stay-at-home mom Kim Tillman. She moved to Marion County in central Indiana last year with her husband and their seven children.

She has an expired Michigan driver's license, but that won't suffice at the Indiana polls. To get one in her new home state, she needs a certified copy of her birth certificate, which costs between $50 and $60. For a family that scrapes by with help from public assistance, that's a lot of money.

"What matters is the burden it places on the right to vote," said Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center. "It's a two-tier voting system that makes it easier for better-off citizens to vote. And it's a very circuitous route for poor and elderly citizens to get past the hurdles, and to have their vote counted. People don't want to swear an affidavit saying they're indigent."

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate's MSNBC page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain                Barack Obama

MORE FROM DECISION '08

Decision '08 Section Front

Registration gains favor Democrats McCain accuses Obama of lying Palin expands character attacks Republican lawmakers: Stop Palin ethics probe Mudslinging grips McCain, Obama campaigns Essay: When Palin talks, women talk New Yorker: Making the critical choice Newsweek: Obama and the (faint) echoes of Lincoln Briefing Book: Shooting for the sweet spot NYT: McCain, Obama sharply divided on Iraq Decision '08 Section Front   Add Decision '08 headlines to your news reader: