Indiana Supreme Court upholds state’s voter ID law

INDIANAPOLIS — Opponents of Indiana’s 2005 voter identification law say it keeps poor people from casting ballots. But those same people who advocates say can’t afford to get a state ID will have to find a way to hire a lawyer if the politically charged law is to be challenged in court again.

The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the law Wednesday, turning back a challenge by the League of Women Voters. The U.S. Supreme Court already had upheld the law on different grounds in 2008.

The state court held that the law didn’t pose a substantive obstacle to voting and was “merely regulatory in nature.” But it left the door open for future challenges if specific voters come forward.

Justice Brent Dickson noted in the 4-1 decision that no actual voters harmed by the law were named in the suit, a fact that was trumpeted by Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita.

“The plaintiffs, after five years of having this law implemented, have yet to find one person who has truly been disenfranchised by this law,” Rokita said. “They can’t find the Indiana voter that this has wrongfully offended.”

Critics have said the law would keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots, in part because they can’t afford to pay for copies of birth certificates and other documents required to obtain a state-issued ID.

Attorneys for the League of Women Voters said in oral arguments in March that the law has hurt people who could testify, but none were named in the suit.

“We actually do know of individuals who have been turned away from the polls on the basis of identification,” said Erin Kelley, president of the League of Women Voters of Indianapolis.

But they weren’t included because the organization decided to challenge the law on its face rather than on an individual basis, she said.

While the state court said individuals who had been harmed by the law still could sue, Kelley and Karen Celestino-Horseman, an attorney for the league, said those people can rarely afford to hire a lawyer.

Celestino-Horseman said the odds of a fresh challenge could increase when stringent new drivers’ license ID requirements take effect in January, affecting people who aren’t necessarily poor.

“Women in particular are going to be impacted,” she said, by requirements that they produce documents authenticating every name change in cases of marriage and divorce.

Kelley said the group would remain “vigilant” and monitor elections to determine whether anyone was turned away from the polls.

“If we need to step in again, the league will do that,” she said.

The league argued the law violates the state constitution because it imposed a requirement on some voters, but not all, since absentee voters aren’t required to prove their identity. The state appeals court agreed in 2009 and threw out the law, but the ID requirements remained in place pending the decision by the state Supreme Court.

The law has been tangled up in court challenges and political posturing since it was first passed in 2005 by a Republican-controlled Legislature. And Democratic Indiana House Speaker Patrick Bauer didn’t anticipate that to end, saying he also expected Wednesday’s ruling to be challenged.

But: “You have to find the money,” he said. “Justice is not cheap.”

Sen. Connie Lawson, a Republican from Danville who authored the 2005 law, said she’s heard second-hand stories of people affected by the law but hasn’t heard personally from any constituents who couldn’t vote because of it. She hopes the ruling Wednesday settles the issue.

“The bill was well thought-out, and we tried to do everything that we possibly could to inhibit any barriers for anybody voting,” Lawson said. “I hope it’s a final say.”