553 U.S. 181 (2008)
In 2005, the Indiana General Assembly enacted Senate Enrolled Act No. 483, referred to as the Voter ID Law or SEA 483. The statute requires citizens voting in person at primary and general elections to present a government-issued photo identification card. It does not apply to absentee ballots submitted by mail. There is an exception for persons living and voting in a state-licensed facility such as a nursing home.
Voters who lack compliant photo identification may cast a provisional ballot. The ballot will be counted only if they execute an appropriate affidavit before the circuit court clerk within ten days following the election. A voter who is indigent or has a religious objection to being photographed may cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if she executes an appropriate affidavit before the circuit court clerk within 10 days following the election.1 The state offers free photo identification to qualified voters able to establish their residence and identity.
Promptly after the enactment of SEA 483 in 2005, the Indiana Democratic Party and the Marion County Democratic Central Committee filed suit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Indiana against the state officials responsible for its enforcement.2 A second suit seeking the same relief was brought on behalf of two elected officials and several nonprofit organizations representing groups of elderly, disabled, poor, and minority voters.3 The cases were consolidated, and the State of Indiana intervened to defend the validity of the statute.4
After discovery, District Judge Barker prepared a comprehensive 70-page opinion explaining her decision to grant defendants' motion for summary judgment.5 She found that petitioners had not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of SEA 483 or who will have his or her right to vote unduly burdened by its requirements.6 She rejected as utterly incredible and unreliable an expert's report that up to 989,000 registered voters in Indiana did not possess either a driver's license or other acceptable photo identification.7 She estimated that as of 2005, when the statute was enacted, around 43,000 Indiana residents lacked a state-issued driver's license or identification card.8
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed.9 Four judges voted to grant a petition for rehearing en banc.10 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.11
Whether Indiana's statute requiring government-issued photo identification for in-person voting substantially burdens the right to vote?12
Under the Anderson-Burdick framework, evenhanded restrictions protecting the integrity of the electoral process are evaluated by weighing the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to voting rights against the precise interests put forward by the state as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule.13
No. The record shows that the burden is limited for most voters because the state provides free photo identification cards to qualified voters who establish their identity and residence.14 Voters without identification may cast provisional ballots that are counted upon executing an affidavit at the circuit court clerk's office within ten days after the election.15 The District Court found after discovery that petitioners introduced no evidence of any individual Indiana resident who would be unable to vote or whose right to vote would be unduly burdened.16
The statute does not substantially burden the right to vote.17
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Thomas And Alito
Justice Scalia concurred in the judgment on the ground that petitioners' premise that the voter-identification law might have imposed a special burden on some voters is irrelevant.18 He preferred to decide the cases on the grounds that the burden at issue is minimal and justified.19 A law respecting the right to vote should be evaluated under the approach in Burdick v. Takushi, which calls for application of a deferential important regulatory interests standard for nonsevere, nondiscriminatory restrictions.20
The different ways in which Indiana's law affects different voters are no more than different impacts of the single burden that the law uniformly imposes on all voters.21 To vote in person, everyone must have and present a photo identification that can be obtained for free.22 This is a generally applicable, nondiscriminatory voting regulation.23
The law's universally applicable requirements are eminently reasonable because the burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is not a significant increase over the usual voting burdens.24
Joined by Justice Ginsburg
Justice Souter dissented on the ground that Indiana's Voter ID Law threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting right of tens of thousands of the State's citizens.25 A significant percentage of those individuals are likely to be deterred from voting.26 The statute is unconstitutional under the balancing standard of Burdick v. Takushi.27
A State may not burden the right to vote merely by invoking abstract interests.28 It must make a particular, factual showing that threats to its interests outweigh the particular impediments it has imposed.29 The State has made no such justification here.30
The first set of burdens shown is the travel costs and fees necessary to get one of the limited variety of federal or state photo identifications needed to cast a regular ballot.31 The burden of traveling to a more distant BMV office rather than a conveniently located polling place is probably serious for many of the individuals who lack photo identification.32
Justice Breyer dissented on the ground that the statute imposes a disproportionate burden upon those eligible voters who lack a driver's license or other statutorily valid form of photo identification.33 He would balance the voting-related interests that the statute affects.34 He concluded that while the Constitution does not in general forbid Indiana from enacting a photo ID requirement, this statute imposes a disproportionate burden upon those without valid photo IDs.35
The Carter-Baker Commission conditioned its recommendation upon the States' willingness to ensure that the requisite photo IDs be easily available and issued free of charge and that the requirement be phased in over two federal election cycles.36 Indiana's law fails to satisfy these aspects of the Commission's recommendation.37 An Indiana nondriver, most likely to be poor, elderly, or disabled, will find it difficult and expensive to travel to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.38
Whether the state's interests in deterring voter fraud, modernizing election procedures, and protecting public confidence in elections justify the burdens imposed by the photo identification requirement?39
Yes. Each of Indiana's asserted interests is unquestionably relevant to protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.42 The interest in deterring and detecting voter fraud is legitimate even though the record contains no evidence that in-person voter impersonation has occurred in Indiana.43 Such fraud has occurred elsewhere.44
Indiana's experience with fraud in a 2003 mayoral primary demonstrates a real risk that could affect a close election.45 The interests in modernizing election procedures and protecting public confidence in elections are also sufficient to justify the limited burdens.46
The state's interests justify the burdens imposed by the photo identification requirement.47
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Thomas And Alito
Justice Scalia concurred in the judgment on the ground that the state's stated interests are sufficient to sustain the minimal burden uniformly imposed by the generally applicable nondiscriminatory regulation.48 The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable.49 The burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe.50
The State's interests are sufficient to sustain that minimal burden.51 That should end the matter. The State accommodates some voters by permitting the casting of absentee or provisional ballots.52 That is an indulgence, not a constitutional imperative.53
Joined by Justice Ginsburg
Justice Souter dissented on the ground that the state's interests in combating voter fraud and modernizing elections can claim only modest weight.54 The State has not come across a single instance of in-person voter impersonation fraud in Indiana's history.55 The antifraud rationale is open to skepticism given the absence of evidence and the availability of less burdensome alternatives.56
Nothing else the State has to say does much to bolster its case.57 The State responds to the want of evidence with the assertion that in-person voter impersonation fraud is hard to detect.58 The deterrence argument can do only so much work, since photo identification is itself hardly a failsafe against impersonation.59
Justice Breyer dissented on the ground that the state's interests fail to justify the practical limitations placed on the right to vote.60 The record provides no convincing reason why Indiana's photo ID requirement must impose greater burdens than those of other states or the Carter-Baker Commission recommendations.61 By way of contrast, two other States, Florida and Georgia, have put into practice photo ID requirements significantly less restrictive than Indiana's.62
Whether petitioners have produced sufficient evidence to support a facial challenge invalidating the statute in all its applications?63
No. Petitioners failed to quantify either the magnitude of the burden on the narrow class of voters who cannot afford or obtain a birth certificate or the portion of the burden that is fully justified.66 The District Court rejected as utterly incredible and unreliable an expert report estimating that up to 989,000 registered voters lacked acceptable photo identification.67 The evidence in the record does not provide concrete evidence of the burden imposed on voters who currently lack photo identification.68 When considering the statute's broad application to all Indiana voters, it imposes only a limited burden on voters' rights.69
Petitioners have not produced sufficient evidence to support a facial challenge invalidating the statute in all its applications.70