Wow, what a democracy we have. Early Saturday morning the Supreme Court, without any opinion to explain its ruling, refused to remove the stay on Texas’ strict voter ID law that had been granted by a the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite the lack of any majority opinion, Justice Ginsberg filed a dissent, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan which you can read here in full. Here’s the story posted by The Washington Post:
“The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” Ginsburg wrote. […]
But Ginsburg said the court had shirked its duty, since a district court after a full trial had said the law was written with discriminatory intent and could keep an estimated 600,000 registered voters from casting ballots.
This is a blatantly political decision by the court. The most comprehensive study of the alleged “voter fraud” these voter ID laws are supposed to prevent (i.e., voters showing up at the polls claiming to be someone they are not) could find only thirty-one cases of such voter impersonation out 1 billion ballots cast since 2000.
So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country. If you want to check my work, you can read a comprehensive list of the incidents below.
To put this in perspective, the 31 incidents below come in the context of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. In general and primary elections alone, more than 1 billion ballots were cast in that period.
Thus because of the infinitesimal risk of a few wrongful votes being cast, over 600,000 people have just been disenfranchised in Texas. As Justice Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit, a conservative Reagan appointee, and no friend to liberals, but perhaps the most respected jurist in the country, recently wrote in his own damning opinion of a similar voter ID law in Wisconsin:
“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud, if there is no actual danger of such fraud, and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”
Well, we now know that the Roberts’ Court cares more about helping elect Republicans to office by preventing likely Democratic Party supporters from voting, than it does in legitimate elections and a true democracy.
Et tu, Justice Breyer?
Posner is what I imagine conservatives would look like in a sane universe, and in their theoretical “Edmund Burke” circle jerks.
Posner is right on this, for once. Remember, he was okay with the odious Indiana Voter ID bill a few years ago.
why has no one asked these folks “where are all the arrests, the charges, the convictions of voter fraud?” If this was such a problem wouldn’t we be seeing more court cases? Some jail time?? Nah, Supreme Court My ASS…
Looks as if the “red states” have found their voter disenfranchisement model legislation. That should keep the “red states” red for a couple more generations. Except for the occasional fluke elections when the GOP candidate is too loathsome for all but the most racist, sexist, homophobic, ignorant, and wealthiest voters. I’m none too sure that such voters aren’t a majority in many “red states.” And with the crap education curriculum they’re instituting, they’re breeding more of their own kind.
My comment is way premature. Misread and thought the 5th Circuit had overturned the trial court decision. It accepted the Abbott/Texas appeal and stayed the lower court decision. SCOTUS agreed with the 5th Circuit stay.
5th Circuit decision on the appeal will come later. But in the meantime, the TX voter ID law will be in place.
When the RIGHT to vote is taken away from American citizens. Then this leads down the slippery path to revolution.
Not removing the stay on the judgement returns it to status quo before the Texas case. It is a refusal to decide constitutionality.
The step for the defenders of voting rights is to do intensive study of these elections and intensive documentation of incidents that happened as a result of this law.
That could be presented as evidence should a hearing before the Supreme Court be held.
I suspect all the evidence in the world will not change at least four of those votes and probably five.
Where the fk are the liberal billionaires when you need them?
All of these laws could be circumvented by simply hiring some buses and taking poor people to get their IDs en masse. And it’d make a hell of a show, too, bringing out the racists and fascists for the world to see.
Whatever makes you think that “liberal” billionaires want poor people to vote? Or are even all that keen on democracy? What they don’t like are theocratic laws and dumb drug policies, and most salivate over the possibility of privatizing all the commons.
Well, if those pseudoliberals want their legal weed, legal abortions and legal hookers, they best be getting the poors and browns out to vote, because the Republican party is limited to using those issues to get their useful idiots to vote – so those issues will not be 100% resolved ever.
Just look at the reboot of contraception politics that had ostensibly been solved 40 years ago.
I mean, I grasp the concept that a lot of liberal billionaires like the rest of us to struggle, making their easy-mode lives even more valuable, but they sure don’t understand their fascist counterparts that want to deny them legal weed, abortions and hookers.
Where the fk are the liberal billionaires when you need them?
The only billionaire that’s liberal in any sense of the word, besides gay marriage, is Nick Hanauer. Is Steyer? That’s two, which one is a maybe. That’s all I know. What billionaire do you know that’s not greedy, selfish, arrogant and just down right nasty?
Well, I don’t know any billionaires personally. And I get that even being a billionaire implies inherent greed and sociopathy. I mean, if I were Emperor, I’d confiscate 99% of every dollar of wealth over $200M. If you can’t continue to be obscenely wealthy with $200M, then you don’t fking deserve it, period. Not that anyone necessarily deserves $200M, but considering that raising the marginal income tax rate back up to 40% is seen as a quasi-communistic redistribution of wealth, I feel that $200M is a decent compromise.
That said, there are millionaires and billionaires who claim to be liberal, and tend to give money to foundations to help liberal causes. But, why the fk don’t they just divvy that money out and directly help people. I mean, just because you get buses to take people to register to vote, get ID, or go to vote, doesn’t mean you’re only helping liberals, as I’m sure some people will vote R/I/L instead. But it doesn’t change the fact that the person who burned their money to get as many people to vote as possible is a real democrat (small d) and in my view, a hero.
Or, to put it another way, my question was more rhetorical than anything else.
Clarification: NYTimes article
Abbott/Texas appealed ruling. Scotusblog
IOW, the 5th Circuit Stayed the decision of the trial court; 2014 election will proceed under the new restrictive voter ID law. Abbott/Texas appeal to be heard later. Note: an appeal can proceed with or without a Stay of a lower court decision.
Lawyers for civil rights groups filed appeal with the SCOTUS on the 5th Circuit Stay. SCOTUS says the Stay stands.
Alas..this may be a losing issue for Progressives…most Americans have a photo ID, and understand that it’s not really hard to get.
The 99 percent of folks who have a photo ID may not understand the 1 percent who cannot.
Well, it’s certainly a loser when your voters are prevented from voting by new-fangled poll taxes. As for your figures, well…
As for the ease of obtaining an ID, well…
So yeah, it’s so easy to get an ID if you have access to a car, time off work, time to go on the one day a month the office is open, time to wait in line for god knows how long. Then you can get your “free” voter ID.
It’s very hard to get ID since 9-11. You need a birth certificate to get a driver’s license and a driver’s license to get a birth certificate.
To answer the vote fraud charges, I would not argue that is rae. Kidnapping is rare. That doesn’t make it OK.
I would instead argue for a photo on the voter registration card. Said photo taken for free when you register. An alternative is a free state ID issued by DMV instead of a fee. A fee can be charged if you lose it.
I see no mention of Texas state ID in this item. Don’t they have one? Must you drive or shoot to vote in Texas? I wouldn’t be surprised.
your concern is noted, thanx!
pure rotten evil
The Roberts Court in a century will be remembered with the same fondness that the Taney Court is remembered now. You don’t hand down decisions which rank right up there with the Dred Scott Decision and find yourself being considered an enlightened judiciary. The neoconservatives might be able to hang on to power for a few more years because of this, but ultimately their reputations will be sullied beyond imagining. I often wonder if Roberts ever considers just what the memory will be of his coterie of Justices who delivered anything but.
They. Don’t. Care. To them, history is something conservatives make up as they go along (see Barton, David), periodically adjusted to fit the current situation.