Even Stevens (agrees on ballot integrity)

Great article (here) about the Supreme Court's Voter ID ruling this week. Here's an article excerpt--related to what could fairly be termed a bi-ideological decision:

Six months before the presidential election, the issue of ballot integrity is already a partisan battleground. The 2005 Indiana law was backed by Republicans, opposed by Democrats, and the decision is widely described as having given the Republicans an election-year victory. "The GOP for years has been actively pursuing a campaign against what it calls 'voter fraud,' and the Court's ruling Monday appears to validate that effort, at least in part," Lyle Denniston on the SCOTUS blog maintained. . . . Fraud is seen as a (misguided) Republican concern, while Democrats are credited with concern about equal electoral access — with the two viewed as mutually exclusive.

If the poor and elderly find it too hard to obtain photo IDs, voting is not their only problem. They can’t take advantage of a cheap airfare when they want to visit a new grandchild; they have no access to their elected representatives in a building with a security check; they are unlikely to get into a Social Security office.

“Democracy was the big loser in the Supreme Court on Monday” the New York Times editorialized. Democratic government requires a certain tolerance for fraud, our “paper of record” implies. Somehow, I don’t think so. And neither does Justice Stevens.

Voters--and consequently (in this case) a majority of state legislators strongly support a photo ID requirement . . . the Supreme Court was right to let this law stand.