# Supreme Court upholds Indiana Voter ID law **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227 "2008-04-28T15:23:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/141 "2008-05-03T19:12:17Z")
You have a right to pursue happiness. You can try to convince Ms. Hunt to provide you with those services. Post a thread on here; maybe she will respond. You can’t stalk her or harass her to the point where you infringe on her liberties. [QUOTE=jtgain] But I do have a right to travel. Just not to drive, fly, ride a bus, or walk along the expressway, or anything else without permission or a revocation of my rights. I guess that still counts since they don’t ban a specific method; only all methods. [/quote] And, using your response to me as a model, you can hire a charter plane and hop on it without being searched. You can try to convince the charter company to fly you for the same rates as the commerical seats would cost. Post a thread on here; maybe a charter pilot will respond. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/142 "2008-05-04T00:49:48Z")
Bricker, you are using my logic for one argument to apply to a different argument, one that I didn’t apply to the second argument. I didn’t use a “pursuit of happiness” argument to fly on a plane. I used a “right to travel” argument. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2008, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/143 "2008-05-04T03:55:37Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain] Bricker, you are using my logic for one argument to apply to a different argument, one that I didn’t apply to the second argument. I didn’t use a “pursuit of happiness” argument to fly on a plane. I used a “right to travel” argument. [/QUOTE] Fine. How do you figure you have a “right to travel” on someone else’s airplane? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/144 "2008-05-06T14:39:39Z")
Indiana just [canceled 1.1 million voter registrations.](http://www.blackboxvoting.org/) Or something, the picture is a little murky. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/145 "2008-05-06T14:54:46Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] Palast’s article offers supposition and conconclusaory allegation by the pants-load, but I don’t find any actual fact that shows that eligible voters were KNOWINGLY disenfranchised; a perfectly plausible alternate explanation is that they carelessly excluded people who appeared to be connected to a felony list without proper care. [/QUOTE] Carelessness is in and of itself criminal when significant harm is a likely and easily predictable result. Just wanted to mention that in case anybody here is unfamiliar with the basics of the law… ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/146 "2008-05-06T14:59:58Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] I was responding to the claim that there was KNOWING action – that’s a different standard than simple negligence or carelessness. I concede they were careless – but that doesn’t give anyone the license to proclaim their actions KNOWING. [/QUOTE] A single instance may be dismissed in that manner. A carelessly operated systematic program containing many thousands of individual instances cannot – at that point, there is a statistical certainty of many such errors, and that fact is KNOWN in advance. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/147 "2008-05-06T17:19:08Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] A single instance may be dismissed in that manner. A carelessly operated systematic program containing many thousands of individual instances cannot – at that point, there is a statistical certainty of many such errors, and that fact is KNOWN in advance. [/QUOTE] No, not true. It might still be careless, it might even be reckless, but it isn’t a knowing result. That is a leap in logic that doesn’t work, here. Which doesn’t excuse it, just forces those who castigate it to use proper terminology. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/148 "2008-05-06T20:15:26Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] Carelessness is in and of itself criminal when significant harm is a likely and easily predictable result. Just wanted to mention that in case anybody here is unfamiliar with the basics of the law… [/QUOTE] Er… no. When significant PHYSICAL harm is likely, yes. But my carelessness in losing your life savings in the stock market is certainly significant harm for you, but as long as it’s truly careless, it’s not criminal. And even if it were criminal, what of it? That’s not the point I’m debating. Certainly careless acts can rise to criminality, even if they’re not KNOWING. I’m saying that this wasn’t KNOWING; I take no position on whether they were criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/149 "2008-05-06T20:16:44Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] A single instance may be dismissed in that manner. A carelessly operated systematic program containing many thousands of individual instances cannot – at that point, there is a statistical certainty of many such errors, and that fact is KNOWN in advance. [/QUOTE] Ridiculous. If I make a single mistake on my database program, and no one else ever checks the results, the mere fact that my database has ten million records does not transform my mistake into anything knowing. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/150 "2008-05-06T20:20:21Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Indiana just [canceled 1.1 million voter registrations.](http://www.blackboxvoting.org/) Or something, the picture is a little murky. [/QUOTE] What garbage. > [@](#): > > Try it. Use any computer program you have, and enter your name with a typo. Then do a search for your name. If I typo “Ben Harris” and search for “Bev Harris” I won’t find it. Now, with the paper pollbooks, a pollworker might see that it’s a typo, if my address is the same. Whether they accept that Bev Harris is Ben Harris is open to how flexible they feel at the moment. Plenty of search programs handle typos. I just used Google to search for “Straight Dpoe,” and the very first line that appears is: “Did you mean: straight dope.” ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227/151 "2008-05-06T21:03:27Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Indiana just [canceled 1.1 million voter registrations.](http://www.blackboxvoting.org/) Or something, the picture is a little murky. [/QUOTE] From your link: > [@](#): > > Because Indiana is implementing an ID requirement, and this will require that voters name and address match when the voter registration database is compared with their ID, an unscrupulous data entry person would no longer need to PURGE registrations in order to knock people off the voting rolls. All that’s required is CHANGING the registration slightly, to introduce typos. An unscrupulous person with access to the states voter database can screw up the system anyway. Don’t need the ID Act for that… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law/447227.md?page=7)