DoJ Argues for Voter ID Law in Supreme Court Case.

TPM:


Signaling that things haven't changed all that much at the Justice Department, the DoJ has filed an amicus brief (pdf) with the Supreme Court in support of Indiana's voter ID law.
The decision to file the brief in and of itself will prove controversial, but beyond that, opponents say that the brief's argument would set a standard that stacks the deck in favor of vote suppression measures and against those who challenge them. Arguments in the case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, are set to be heard by the Court in January.


In the 42-page brief (pdf), the Department argues that Indiana's law is a "reasonable administrative rule that furthers the State's compelling interest in combating voter fraud." Alleged voter fraud, of course, has been a continual preoccupation of the Department, even leading to the firing of at least two of the nine U.S. attorneys in the Gonzales-era purge, despite overwhelming evidence that such fraud is extremely rare and even then hardly ever intentional.


In a statement, the Brennan Center for Justice, which has filed an amicus brief against the law and calls the case "the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore," denounced the Department's argument as an "extreme legal position." If accepted, the group argues, the standard set would mean "that there could be virtually no challenges to laws suppressing the vote before an election....


This means that any law meant to suppress the vote would have already accomplished its goal of disenfranchising voters before it could be challenged in Court. Their position, taken to its logical extent, would allow jurisdictions to suppress the votes of tens of thousands of voters before a single aggrieved voter could get their day in Court."