Nuns without photo ID rebuffed at the polls

May 6, 2008

Note to the Supreme Court: you messed up in a big way.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,'” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”

All in the name of preventing fraud that didn’t exist.

Thank God that the possibility of electoral fraud by elderly nuns has been headed off at the pass.

And, no, it’s not funny. But maybe this will push the lawmakers to fix the problem poste haste.

  • Aren’t Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas all Catholics? Will the Pope intercede?

  • But but but…now the supreme court will review this right?

    wasn’t that the argument? If someone was actually disenfranchised, *then* that person could challenge the law?

    this is outrageous. All the defenders of the Supreme Courts awful ruling should now explain to us why this is a good thing for our society.

  • All because some idiots got a wild hair over a hypothetical threat.

    It was no “wild hair”; this was a GOP move to disenfranchise voters who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. pure and simple.

    You are correct, however, that it was justified using a hypothetical threat.

  • this was part of the goal of the id law. everybody knows that single women overwhelmingly vote democratic.

  • Now that this disenfranchisement has actually happened, could the nuns resurrect the lawsuit that was killed in part because there wasn’t proof anyone had been harmed yet?

  • The right to vote is the most important right in a Democracy, and it has been infringed upon by the state of Indiana with the blessing of the SCOTUS. What a sad day.

  • Chris O,

    Now that this disenfranchisement has actually happened, could the nuns resurrect the lawsuit that was killed in part because there wasn’t proof anyone had been harmed yet?

    Sure. And, assuming it even makes it all the way, the Supreme Court will weigh in on that issue sometime in 2011…

    meanwhile, Indiana’s GOP has successfully disenfranchised voters.

  • I suspect that resurrecting the lawsuit was the purpose of these nuns doing this. Good for them.

  • Republicans hate and fear democracy and worst of all, hand-counted paper ballots in elections. They much prefer to have Republican-controlled voting machine corporations like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia to “count” the votes in secret with proprietary software. Worked for Hillary in New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania…

  • Edo,

    I think the point (which I was involved in making) was that if an Indiana voter was in the highly improbable situation of being unable both to procure a state-issued ID and unable to execute an affidavit necessary to validate a provisional ballot, then that individual might be able to bring an as-applied challenge to the statute so as to compel some degree of additional accommodation from the state. First of all, I see no indication that these nuns are in that position. Having been informed that an ID would be necessary, they simply failed to comply with the law because they “[didn’t] want to,” and I find rather implausible the assertion that it would be “impossible,” as opposed to moderately inconvenient, for any of these individuals to travel to a motor vehicles’ branch (I thought it was the county clerks’ office?) to fill out an affidavit. Moreover, even if they do have a valid as-applied challenge to the law (which they don’t), the relief would be nothing more than some kind of accommodation for their conditions– perhaps requiring the county clerk’s office to send a representative to their convent with affidavit forms, or some such thing. None of this undermines the Court’s holding in Crawford in the least.

  • Dee asked “Aren’t Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas all Catholics? Will the Pope intercede?”

    Yes, they’re all Catholics. But never forget that they’re Republicans first. Remember Bush v. Gore? Those bleeding-heart nuns were probably going to vote Democratic, and the whole point of this voter-id stuff is to suppress the Democratic vote.

    Will the Pope intercede? I doubt it. The Pope and his minions seem to be single-issue voters these days. That issue is abortion. Most of the pro-choice candidates are Democrats. Enough said.

  • Did I miss an explanation as to why you’re no longer reporting in the War Room at Salon? I could do w/o Koppelman but enjoyed the column when you were reporting for the first time since Tim left.

  • What I think is fascinating (and wonderful) is that these aged nuns wanted to vote. Obviously they felt very strongly about changing the system. Good for them.

    When I worked the New Mexico Democratic primary back in February, I was amazed and pleased at the number of really old people who stood in line to vote.

  • Chris O, @7,

    If it’s too difficult for them to get over to DMV to get the ID… If it’s too difficult for them to get over to the clerk’s court to sign up a sworn affidavit of identity, how do you expect them to be showing up at courts, to push their case? Lives of nuns are pretty circumscribed in what they can do and when, buy what they have to do and when (the rules of their order).

    Not to mention that, if they’re in their 80ties and 90ties, the case would have to be decided like, tomorrow, to make sure they all could still testify. If you’re 98, like one of them was, you’re living on borrowed time. And who knows if they could get their IDs even if they did make the effort; 80-90 yrs ago, there were more home births than there are now and record keeping wasn’t as strict.

    But, if the Corporate Media makes enough fuss about this — and they might, because it’s such an odd thing to have happened — perhaps something good will come out of it.

  • “Messed up” only if you believe that the aim of the judges was to ensure the proper enfranchisement of legitimate voters.

    I say “Mission Accomplished”.

  • phoebes, @17,

    Older people, especially educated ones, have always been a reliable block; they feel it’s an obligation. It’s the young ones who have always — until this year — been a no-show problem.

    What *is* peculiar however, is that they were nuns… They must have one heck of a father confessor there; most nuns aren’t encouraged to leave their conventual retreat and go a-gallivanting in the secular world. OTOH, if he’s from the Notre Dame U (which he might be, given the proximity of the convent to the U…

  • JRD,

    Now you are telling me that Stevens and Roberts left the door open for an as-applied challenge just so that they could compel the state to come up with an accomodation? That’s a typical Supreme Court decision?

    I realize I never went to law school, but I thought they either let a law stand, refer it back to a lower court, or rule a law unconstututional. But hey, what do I know? I don’t even play a lawyer on blogs.

    My original disgust with their decision stands. You originally defended the ruling in essence saying that the Indiana law would not disenfranchise anyone. The facts here showed that several people were disenfranchised. Your opinion is that they could have easily avoided it. I think reasonable people can disagree about that.

  • Eh. As we learned last week, those Catholics were probably only going to vote for Clinton anyway.

    KIDDING! Calm down!

  • I don’t even play a lawyer on blogs. -Edo

    Oooo, zing. That one has to sting.

  • Edo,

    Had you gone to law school, you’d understand that an as-applied challenge never goes to the facial validity of the law– that’s why it’s called “as applied.” The question of the constitutionality vel non of the Indiana ID law is settled by Crawford; I think I actually made that pretty clear in the first thread if you go back and look at it. If a court were to determine that some segment of the Indiana voting population is unconstitutionally disenfranchised by this law, then it might compel the state to take some curative step to correct that, but would not in any event invalidate the law as applied to the majority of the population.

    As I also said in the previous thread, to argue that anyone is “disenfranchised” by this law is to dilute that term to the point of absurdity. I stand by that assessment. As previously noted, the nuns here were aware of the requirement and there is no assertion that they were not able to comply with it; they simply chose not to. Moreover, while the author of the article asserts that it would be “impossible” for them to file an affidavit validating their provisional ballots, I see no reason to accept that assertion– certainly the fact that some of them are in wheelchairs doesn’t render it impossible for them to take a trip to the county clerk or the DMV or whatever the appropriate agency is (there seems to be some disagreement about that, though I’m going to bet that the Supreme Court was better informed on the point than the author of this article– and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the DMV to be the appropriate agency anyway). So, no, nothing reported here changes my view of the constitutionality of this law at all, or my assessment that very few, if any, Indiana voters would be unable to comply with it.

  • JRD, did I miss your CV to be qualified as legal counsel to TCBR?

    (and didn’t Swan claim to be a law student?)

  • What you said, most of you. The State of Indiana can’t practice religious discrimination, can it? :>

    This poll tax in disguise is going to be very tricky to fight. I’d love to be able to pay the expenses of would-be voters and drive them where they need to go (if I could drive). But to fight laws like Indiana’s, there has to be proof that a lot of people were disenfranchised. That means letting a lot of elections go to Republicans, either by one means or another.

    The supposed anti-fraud laws will place the greatest burden on those in poorly paid, nonprofessional, and nonunionized jobs. Taking time off to make the proper arrangements could get them fired. What’s a $1.50 poll tax, even adjusted for inflation, compared to that?

    You go, sisters!

  • Just to add:

    libra, there are all sorts of orders of nuns with all sorts of rules. Not all of them have to live as prisoners in the convent.

  • Bar fly,

    If it’s any of your business, or makes the slightest difference to the substance of my argument (which it does not), I am in fact a licensed attorney.

  • JDR @28 said:

    I am in fact a licensed attorney.

    I really do appreciate the knowledge and clarity you put forth to point out how all this works. But for the lay folk such as I, it still reeks disenfranchisment. More to the point, why are we relying on the courts so much to intervene in voter issues? Could it be all is _still_ not well with the system despite best efforts? While I’ll grant you make a case, I don’t understand how this pulls us together as a people.

    When in time you motor over to a polling booth in your electric scooter, will your business card be sufficient to prevent being turned away for failing to navigate the pre-conditions of voting? The landscape will probably change from the current system and I’m sure you wouldnt want to be denied voting for the best dressed candidate.

  • Shameful, and at the same time, so very Christian of the poll worker. Good for these nuns showing up to show how bad the voter ID law is. Since the voter ID is the law, there should be areas at polling places for people to obtain ID on the spot. But then, these nuns may have voted for a Democrat so why accomodate them? I shake my head in wonder at where our country is going.

  • There’s the law and then there is the spirit of the law…the reason it was intended…and if those in the community who know them and their situation did not invoke the spirit of the law and allow these nuns to vote then they have lost the purpose and meaning of justice.

    Voter ID laws are unnecessary and unconstitutional.

  • On May 6th, 2008 at 5:45 pm, james k. sayre said:
    Republicans hate and fear democracy and worst of all, hand-counted paper ballots in elections. They much prefer to have Republican-controlled voting machine corporations like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia to “count” the votes in secret with proprietary software. Worked for Hillary in New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania
    I so agree!
    It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
    Joseph Stalin

  • I’m still trying to figure out a likely scenario that could occur where an election is influenced by the kind of “voter fraud” that this law is supposedly trying to prevent.

  • Isn’t Hillery pulling in the Catholic vote? Wouldn’t she be concerned that she lost 12 votes? The Supreme Court is majority Catholic with 5 justices of that faith. Perhaps they are getting back at the nuns that were their teachers in school. Those rulers and pointers really hurt when they came into contact with one’s knuckles.

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