Voter ID Law Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy has become par for the course when it comes to attacks on Indiana’s voter ID law, as Abdul has noted by the refusal of Democrats to be concerned when one of their own disenfranchised 3,100 voters in last year’s primary election in Indianapolis.

Advance Indiana has read the transcript of yesterday’s oral arguments, and seems to think that the law’s opponents fell flat in their arguments before the Supreme Court.

I think that the exceedingly skeptical questioning of Justice Anthony Kennedy (the deciding vote in almost all of the cases from the rather divided court) toward the law’s opponents should give some indication of where the highest court in the land will eventually come down.

Most amusing of all, however, when it comes to hypocrisy over the voter ID law is this story, which has been cited variously at Instapundit (heh) and Daily Pundit (bwahahahaha!).

On the eve of a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Indiana Voter ID law has become a story with a twist: One of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two states.

Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both states.

Monday night from her Florida home, Ewing said she and her husband Kenneth “winter in Florida and summer in Indiana.” She admitted to registering to vote in both states, but stressed that she¹s never voted in Florida. She also has a Florida driver’s license, but when she tried to use it as her photo ID in the Indiana elections in November 2006, poll workers wouldn’t accept it.

Subsequently, Ewing became a sort-of poster child for the opposition when the Indiana League of Women Voters (ILWV) told media that the problems Ewing had voting that day shows why the high court should strike it down.

But Indiana Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita said Monday that Ewing’s tale illustrates exactly why Indiana needs the law. “This shows that the Indiana ID law worked here, which also calls into question why the critics are so vehemently against this law, especially with persons like this, who may not have a legal right to vote in this election,” Rokita said.

Mrs. Ewing, the article goes on to note, registered to vote in both states (and got a driver’s license from Florida, no less) in order to be able to claim homestead exemptions on her property taxes in both Indiana and in Florida.

Oh, the irony.

Oh, the hypocrisy.

Par for the course from the Indiana Democratic Party and its allies, I suppose.