Justices May Iron Out Compromise On Voter ID

An artist's rendering shows Paul Smith arguing before the Supreme Court for challengers of an Indiana law that requires citizens to present photo identification before voting. (By Dana Verkouteren -- Associated Press)

Smith said it would be a 17-mile bus ride for a poor person in the city of Gary.

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas M. Fisher told the justices that as the lower court had found, only "an infinitesimal portion of the electorate that could even be, conceivably be, burdened by" the law's requirement.

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the impact would be unquestionably on the poor. "That burden is on every indigent person who doesn't have a photo ID, so we are not speculating about numbers," she said.

If the objective of government should be to make it easier for "America to vote, all Americans," she and Justice Stephen G. Breyer wondered why states did not simply issue photo identification when registering voters.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. seemed inclined to uphold Indiana's law, but he summed up the quandary for the court.

"If you concede that some kind of voter ID requirement is appropriate, the problem that I have is where you draw the line on a record like this, where there's nothing to quantify in any way the extent of the problem or the extent of the burden," he said. "How do we tell whether this is on one side of the line or the other side of the line?"

A decision in the consolidated cases, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, should be decided by the court's adjournment at the end of June, in time for the 2008 general elections.