ID ruling stuns Dems, Ind. setback for Obama

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday to uphold a strict Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, handing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a serious setback days before a pivotal primary battle.

The decision earned strong rebuke from Democratic leaders in Congress as well as civil rights advocates who argued the voter ID law would disproportionately affect African-Americans and 18- to 34-year-old voters, two important constituencies for Obama.

{mosads}The law also places a burden on elderly voters, who have tended to support Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), though to a lesser degree than it affects African-Americans and young voters.

Indiana is shaping up as the next battleground in the contest between Obama and Clinton. Its May 6 primary will allocate 72 delegates.

The court’s decision also lets stand voter identification laws in two potential general-election battlegrounds: Florida and Georgia.

Florida, the fourth-largest state in the nation, determined the winner of the 2000 presidential race by fewer than 1,000 votes. Former President Bill Clinton won Georgia, which has a high percentage of black voters, in 1992, and some Democratic strategists think Obama could be competitive there.

Political analysts believe that Clinton must win Indiana to stay in the race. They expect Obama to win easily in North Carolina, which also hosts a May 6 primary, because more than 20 percent of that state’s residents are black. Obama has won other Southern states with similar demographic profiles by large margins.

Obama, however, will face a significant disadvantage in Indiana because the high court failed to strike down a law that affects two major pillars of support: black voters and young voters.

Indiana requires that voters present state or federal government-issued photo identification on Election Day.

But a recent study conducted by the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race found that 18 percent of Indiana’s black registered voters do not have a valid photo ID card. The group’s analysis also found that 20 percent of registered voters 18 to 34 years old do not have valid IDs.

This correlation and its likely impact on political participation have raised the ire of the NAACP.

“We’re shocked the Supreme Court would hand down a decision to disenfranchise voters across Indiana,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau.

“Potentially, it could affect thousands of African-Americans who have a disproportionate propensity to be poor and less likely to have cars and less likely to have driver’s licenses.”

Shelton said identification cards for non-drivers cost Indiana residents $35.

Obama criticized the court’s decision.

“I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s photo identification law — one of the most restrictive in the nation,” said Obama in a statement. “The right to vote is one of our most privileged rights and important responsibilities as Americans. I filed a brief in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of this law because I believe that it places an unfair burden on Indiana residents who are poor, elderly, disabled, or members of minority groups.”

Obama pledged to fight to ensure all American citizens would have unfettered access to polling places.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Indiana’s law would also affect college students with out-of-state IDs who attend private universities.

There are more than 20 private colleges and universities in Indiana, including the University of Notre Dame, Valparaiso University and Earlham College. Obama has done well among college Democrats.

“Young voters are less likely to possess the in-state identification required by Indiana statute,” said Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director for the Student Public Interest Research Group’s New Voters Project. “Young voters looking to vote may thus be turned away from the polls in droves.”

Justin Levitt, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said that even Indiana natives who attend school in different areas of the state could be affected.

“Unfortunately, we find that poll workers aren’t adequately educated about what the law requires,” said Levitt. “Indiana law does not require that you have your current address on your ID, but some poll workers know that and some poll workers don’t. I’ve heard complaints about [poll workers] asking for the address on rolls to match the IDs.”

Levitt said the effect of the voter ID law and the court’s decision is likely to be more pronounced in the general election, when higher numbers of poor voters tend to show up at the polls.

Monday’s court decision could also affect voter turnout in two states that could prove competitive in November. Georgia and Florida also have voter ID laws, although they are less strict than Indiana’s.

Georgia requires voters to show a photo ID to have their ballot counted. Florida requires that voters who do not have photo identification fill out provisional ballots.

Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (Vt.), panned the court’s action.

“I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s opinion today rejecting a challenge to Indiana’s photo-ID law,” said Reid. “The Indiana law and others like it are roadblocks to democracy — these laws place an unnecessary burden on elderly and low-income voters, not to mention other voters of disparate racial and ethnic backgrounds, among others.”

Republicans, however, applauded the decision.

“The court recognized the right of states to put in place fair procedures to safeguard the vote, while also ensuring that every person who is entitled to vote can do so,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Robert “Mike” Duncan in a statement. “The decision by the court’s majority confirms that efforts such as Indiana’s are appropriate and lawful.”

The court also concluded that the partisan divide over the law did not make it unfair.

“[I]f a nondiscriminatory law is supported by valid neutral justifications, those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a majority opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Stevens in a separate opinion.

Liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Obama and civil rights advocates argued that while the court failed to overturn the Indiana law, it left the door open to future challenges.

Justice Stevens ruled that the petitioners failed to convince the court that the Indiana law was unconstitutional as it was written.

However, civil rights advocates argue that Stevens’s opinion indicates that the court might strike down the law if future challenges show evidence that Indiana residents were denied the right to vote because of the law.

“In sum, on the basis of the record that has been made in this litigation, we cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements,’ ” Stevens wrote.

Levitt, of the Brennan Center for Justice, said this sentence implies that if evidence in a future case shows that the law burdened some voters excessively, the court may rule differently.

Kevin Bogardus, J. Taylor Rushing and Sam Youngman contributed to this report.