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Advocacy Blog
Friday, March 28, 2008
Election law expert believes Roberts Court may be taking voting rights in wrong direction
In commentary posted on Wednesday, Rick L. Hasen -- a law professor at Loyola Law School-- argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party may be setting the groundwork for future decisions that could limit voting rights. By rejecting facial challenges to election law, Hasen believes,the Supreme Court, will allow increasing restrictions on voting, and will likely uphold the Indiana voter ID requirement law in the Crawford v. Marion County Election Board case pending before the court. Hasen writes,
If the Court upholds the Indiana voter ID law on these grounds, we can expect a host of other partisan election laws to be put in place, and for those laws no longer to be subject to facial challenges. That means, in turn, that the laws will have to be in effect for a while before they are challenged, and that they will cause damage in the interim, at a minimum. With two thumbs on the scale on the side of the state, poor and minority voters will hardly have a chance.
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