Republicans Urge Supreme Court to Allow Preemptive Strikes in Elections

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on December 13, 2007, Printed on December 15, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70578/

A new legal strategy that allows states to pass repressive election laws in the name of fighting voter fraud -- even if there is scant evidence such fraud exists or threatens election outcomes -- is emerging before the 2008 election, and the Department of Justice's Voting Section appears to be its biggest champion.

In legal briefs filed at the Supreme Court before a January hearing over the constitutionality of Indiana's 2005 voter I.D. law, the Department of Justice and other defenders of the ID law are making several new arguments that, if accepted by the court, would allow states to create barriers to voting without showing these laws address real problems.