Respected Federal Appeals Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit recently admitted what the ACLU and voting rights advocates have been saying for a long time: Voter identification laws are a means to impede access to the polls and not to prevent fraud.
Judge Posner wrote the majority opinion in a landmark case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, affirming voter ID requirements in 2007.
Across the country, voting rights continue to come under fierce attack and it's going to be a long fight to undue the damage. The ACLU is currently litigating voting rights cases in 15 states, most notably in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These barriers include voter ID requirements, restrictions on early voting, elimination of Election Day registration, and restrictions on voter registration drives. Research shows that more than 21 million Americans do not have government-issued photo identification; a disproportionate number of these Americans are low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, and elderly.
