shorter voter ID proponents:

shorter gary welsh: the court of appeals decision was wrong because the judges are all democrats.

shorter governor mitch daniels: how dare these judges defy me? fie, fie upon them! they'll rue the day they ruled against me! behold, for my ad hominem attacks are mighty indeed!

shorter indy star editorial board: if the stupid court of appeals really wants to obey the state constitution, then fine, we'll make absentee voters show ID. but don't blame us when little old ladies get disenfranchised!

shorter frugal hoosiers: the US supreme court already upheld this law, so who cares if it violates the state constitution?

shorter attorney general greg zoeller: we're going to appeal this decision, but it doesn't really matter because we have no intention of obeying the court order, anyway.


note: there's one common element between all of these: not one of them even attempts to explain why the ruling was wrong on its merits. this is because the ruling is so simple and straightforward that they can't argue on its merits.

update: oops, i spoke too soon. here's gary's take, which boils down to saying that absentee voters were intentionally allowed to vote without showing ID so as not to disenfranchise senior citizens and the disabled. that's all well and good... but seniors and the disabled aren't the only people who vote absentee.

basically, the law creates two classes of voters—in-person and by-mail—and requires the former but not the latter to show ID. doing this violates the state constitution. gary's argument conveniently ignores this basic fact. ¶

Except, of course, that the burden placed on seniors who do vote in person, and who frequently do not have valid or updated driver's licenses, was brushed aside. "They all vote absentee anyway" is not exactly the mark of a well-thought out piece of legislation.

The reason absentee voters were exempted is obvious; doing otherwise would have required addressing the "security" "issue", of which there is none, instead of just impeding the other guys' voters; it would have created logistical migraines (how is an absentee ID any more reliable than an absentee ballot?); and--I think most tellingly--who votes absentee? Military personnel, and in 2005 half the Guard was in Iraq fighting Mitch's $2 billion war. Would a single mention of placing an added burden on military personnel--which couldn't have been mentioned without adding "in a time of War"--have been to sink the whole shady enterprise? Your guess is as good as mine.

None of which, again, answers the question; none of which admits to the slightest concern about the massive "security" hole, let alone the fundamentals of people's right to vote. Tellingly.

 ¶

Given Gary Welsh's fervent and verbose advocacy of the myriad "birther" arguments, why should anybody take seriously any of his legalese? I'd sooner rely on his esteemed colleague: Dr. Orly Taitz! ¶