The Supreme Court recently ruled (in a split decision) that the state of Indiana can require voters to present photo identification in order to cast a ballot.

Conservatives cheered with glee.

The problem with such a stipulation is that it in fact present a barrier, preventing citizens from voting simply because they do not have a picture id.

And that, in fact, is exactly what happened earlier today in Indiana as a group of nuns were unable to cast ballots for lack of an id.

Why didn’t they just go and get an id? They don’t drive and had no means of getting to the nearest state facility to have a photo id made.

Shame on conservatives for refusing these nuns the right to vote. Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton lists the typical “so what/big deal” excuse-making from conservatives:

Most everyone has to have a photo ID for any travel on planes with Homeland Security as it is. They either drive or are able to get an ID at the Secretary of State’s office for less than $10 bucks. You have to have a photo id in many stores now to use a credit card. I’m not sure why voting should be less scrutized.

Actually, no. As this group of now-disenfranchised nuns illustrates, not everyone needs or wants a photo id. And as for the $10 cost, again, not everyone can spare even $10. Indeed, the 24th Amendment declares it illegal to deny the right to vote to persons who are unable to pay a poll tax. That cost of the government-issued photo id amounts to a poll tax by another name. Ms. Eaton would apparently wish that we also disenfranchise the poor. Finally, buying material goods with a credit card is a privilege, not a right enshrined throughout various Sections and Amendments in our Constitution. (Ms. Eaton, of course, is on record as opposing expansion of laws related to firearm owner ID cards … for apparently opposite reasons.)

Then again, maybe the nuns were secretly dead people or illegal immigrants trying to boost vote fraud numbers seeing as how vote fraud was already exceedingly rare even before the recent SCOTUS split decision.

These Indiana rules amount to little more than an intentional disenfranchisement of American citizens who have the legal right to vote, except for wont of a picture — and conservatives applaud such disenfranchisement.

So much for “spreading democracy”…