Democracy's loss

The U.S. Supreme Court sets the bar discouragingly low for states' efforts to discourage legitimate voters

Up in Washington, the Supreme Court made a mountain out of a molehill -- verified instances of people voting with fraudulent intent -- and then leveled the molehill with a bulldozer. By a 6-3 margin the court upheld an Indiana law that requires voters to present an official photo ID card at the polls.

Yes, the ruling may help deter fraud -- although Indiana hasn't experienced any (no wonder -- it's a felony to impersonate a registered voter). More likely, Indiana's law will deter legitimate voters. How? By placing a new burden on poor or elderly people, some of whom have been voting for years but lack the now-required ID.

These folks may be hard-pressed to comply -- getting such an ID generally requires a birth certificate. As one critic says, the ruling creates "new ways to keep voters from voting."

Indiana's intensely partisan voter ID law had been adopted on a party-line vote, Republicans for, Democrats against. GOP-leaning voters may well be more affluent and thus more likely to have government-issued ID than Democrats. But no matter: the court majority said states have an overriding interest in preventing fraud, even if part of their motivation is indeed to favor one political party.

This was a blinkered view of our voting history. Poll taxes and other barriers to poor and minority voting have been a shameful part of America's past. Now we get a ruling that treads uncomfortably similar ground. For example, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for himself and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said there's no need to consider whether Indiana's law imposes a "special burden" on the poor. Scalia even suggested that poll taxes might be able to pass muster.

We're talking here about an American's right to vote, a right too often abridged for political or racial reasons. Yet the court cast its vote for a law with a strong whiff of voter suppression.

Meantime in North Carolina (which has no voter identification requirement) a different threat to orderly voting emerged last week. It involves an effort whose intent is still unclear. A Washington-based group called "Women's Voices. Women Vote" says it merely tries to encourage voter registration. But the group's initial actions seem at odds with its words.

It made misleading "robocalls," many to African-Americans, about a "voter registration packet" or "application" that must be received and returned before the person can vote. The caller is one "Lamont Williams." Coming just before the primary election, this might be an effort to make even registered voters think they can't vote unless they receive the packet.

The organization, which appears to be Democratic-leaning (it's officially nonpartisan), is a legitimate one, and says it quickly halted its campaign here. But in the context of Tuesday's primary, the robocalls are highly questionable. They may flow in the same rancid riverbed as past voter intimidation stunts here.

In 1990, for example, the state Republican Party, the Helms for Senate Committee and others sent cards to over 100,000 African-American voters, giving false information about eligibility and warning of penalties for voter fraud.

Actual voter fraud is intolerable, but it's rare and can be remedied without placing an unneeded burden on particular voters. In North Carolina, voter intimidation has been the bigger worry.