It's About Time...

...that someone started using their brains:

States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court's 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana's strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.

Supporters of the law say it's all about preventing fraud.
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Republican, praised the decision. "This says to the voter you can have confidence again in the elections because we're doing some of the things the guy at the video store does when you go and rent a video," Rokita said. [But} Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said the court was willing to burden "tens of thousands of eligible voters who lack a government-issued identification while accepting at face value Indiana's unsubstantiated claim of voter fraud."

Indiana provides IDs free of charge to people without driver's licenses. It also allows voters who lack photo ID's to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

Although I suppose I understand why those who lack identification or want to masquerade as someone else or who aren't permitted to vote would be upset by this law. And I guess I can understand why the fuss, because voting is essential to the proper function of a democracy, right? And if one isn't allowed to vote, well then that's a dictatorship!