Editorials

Hear the one about the 12 nuns who showed up at a polling place on Election Day and were turned away?

It's no joke, and, sadly, the incident from Indiana's May 6 primary is not in the least bit funny.

According to various news reports, the 12 nuns live in a convent next door to the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. It appears they knew what they were doing when they defied Indiana's strict voter ID law, which the Supreme Court recently approved.

The court voted 6-3 that states can enforce strict voter ID rules. The new regulations appear as a modern-day version of the rules that in the past have been used to disenfranchise racial minorities at the ballot box.

To hear proponents of tougher voter ID laws tell it, requiring picture IDs and the like are a necessity, a safeguard to fend off rampant fraud. That claim doesn't square with the facts that show widespread voter fraud is a fantasy.

An alternative reason is that get-tough proponents are mostly Republicans capable of doing the electoral math. Keeping away from the polls those voters not likely to cast a GOP-friendly ballot is one way to ensure success. To do that, some states are requiring state- or federal government-issued picture IDs to be shown before a voter can enter the voting booth.

Not everyone has such an ID. Those without the means to acquire them might soon find themselves on the sidelines come Election Day.

So it was that 12 Indiana nuns who are in their 80s and 90s and don't drive were barred from their polling place. On the other end of the spectrum, a first-time voter, a college student, was turned away because her Indiana University student ID wouldn't do.

Here's how it has worked. Voter fraud is a serious crime. Break that law and serious punishment awaits the wrongdoer. This has typically been enough to dissuade most potential lawbreakers on Election Day.

Given these facts, get-tough voter ID laws bear a striking resemblance to poll taxes and literacy tests.