Crawford v. Marion County Election Board
Does an Indiana law requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by imposing an undue burden on the right to vote?
The Decision
6-3 decision · Opinion by John Paul Stevens · 2008
Majority Opinion— John Paul Stevensconcurring ↓dissent ↓
The Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter identification law in a 6–3 decision announced on April 28, 2008, though the justices in the majority did not fully agree on their reasoning. Justice John Paul Stevens authored the lead opinion, which was joined in full only by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, making it a plurality opinion rather than a traditional majority opinion. Three additional justices — Scalia, Thomas, and Alito — concurred in the judgment upholding the law but wrote separately with different reasoning.
Justice Stevens applied the balancing framework from prior election law cases, weighing the burdens the law placed on voters against the state interests it served. He acknowledged that the law imposed some burdens on certain voters — particularly those who were elderly, poor, or lacked easy access to documents needed to obtain a photo ID. However, he concluded that the evidence presented by the challengers was insufficient to show that these burdens were so severe as to render the law unconstitutional on its face. Because the plaintiffs brought a facial challenge — meaning they argued the law was unconstitutional in all applications, rather than as applied to specific individuals — they bore a heavy burden of proof that the Court found they had not met.
On the other side of the balance, Stevens credited several state interests as legitimate. These included deterring and detecting voter fraud (even though documented cases in Indiana were sparse), participating in a nationwide effort to improve election procedures, and bolstering public confidence in elections. Stevens noted that the risk of voter fraud was not purely hypothetical, pointing to historical examples and the recommendations of a bipartisan commission on election reform co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, which had endorsed photo ID requirements.
Notably, the plurality opinion left open the possibility that the law could be challenged in the future by specific voters who could demonstrate a concrete and particularized burden. The decision did not say that all voter ID laws are constitutional under all circumstances; rather, it held that this particular challenge, based on the record presented, did not succeed. The standing of the Indiana Democratic Party to bring the challenge was treated as self-evident in a brief footnote, reflecting the longstanding assumption that political parties have an obvious stake in laws regulating elections.
Concurring Opinions
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a concurrence joined by Justices Thomas and Alito that agreed the law should be upheld but advocated a more deferential standard of review. Scalia argued the Court should evaluate only the law's broad, general burden on voters — which he viewed as minimal — rather than examining its effects on specific subgroups of voters, contending that the plurality's more individualized approach invited future litigation and gave judges too much discretion to second-guess state election regulations.
Dissenting Opinions
David Souterjoined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The voter ID law imposes a real and significant burden on a substantial number of eligible voters — particularly the poor, the elderly, and the disabled — that is not justified by the state's asserted interest in combating a type of fraud for which Indiana could produce no evidence. The proper balancing of individual rights against state interests should have led the Court to strike down the law.
- As many as 43,000 Indiana residents of voting age lacked the qualifying photo ID, and the practical obstacles to obtaining one — including travel to government offices and the cost of underlying documents like birth certificates — constituted a serious barrier to the franchise, especially for those with limited resources or mobility.
- Indiana had not presented a single documented instance of the type of in-person voter impersonation fraud that the photo ID law was designed to prevent, meaning the state's justification was entirely speculative while the burden on voters was real and concrete.
- The provisional ballot safety valve was inadequate because it required voters to make a separate trip to the county courthouse within ten days — an additional burden that fell hardest on those who already had the most difficulty getting to the polls in the first place.
- The practical effect of the law was indistinguishable from a poll tax for voters who needed to purchase documents like birth certificates to obtain the free state ID, a burden that falls disproportionately along lines of race and economic class.
Stephen Breyer
While states may impose reasonable regulations on voting, Indiana's law tilts the balance too far against voters because its strict photo ID requirement is not sufficiently justified when weighed against less restrictive alternatives that could achieve the same goals without disenfranchising eligible citizens.
- Other states have implemented less burdensome methods of verifying voter identity — such as allowing voters to sign affidavits or present non-photo identification — that adequately protect election integrity without creating the same barriers for vulnerable populations.
- The proportionality of the means to the ends is off: the law imposes a nontrivial burden on a significant number of voters to address a form of fraud that is, by all available evidence, exceedingly rare in Indiana.
Background & Facts
In 2005, Indiana's state legislature passed Senate Enrolled Act 483, one of the strictest voter identification laws in the nation at the time. The law required anyone voting in person at a polling place to present a government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's license, passport, or state-issued ID card. Voters who could not produce a qualifying photo ID could cast a provisional ballot, but it would only be counted if the voter traveled to a county courthouse within ten days to present the required identification or sign an affidavit of indigency. Indiana provided free photo identification cards to registered voters who did not already have one, but obtaining the underlying documents needed to get that free ID — such as a birth certificate — could involve time, travel, and expense.
The law was challenged by two sets of plaintiffs whose cases were consolidated. William Crawford and other individual voters, along with several civic organizations, filed one suit. The Indiana Democratic Party filed a separate challenge. Both suits named Marion County Election Board and various state officials as defendants. The plaintiffs argued the law was designed to suppress voter turnout among certain populations — particularly the elderly, the poor, and minority voters — who were statistically less likely to possess government-issued photo identification. They contended the law was pushed through the legislature along strict party lines, with every Republican voting for it and every Democrat voting against it, suggesting its true purpose was partisan advantage rather than election integrity.
The case first went before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, which granted summary judgment to the state, finding that the plaintiffs had not presented sufficient evidence of a concrete burden on voters. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 2-1 decision, with Judge Richard Posner writing the opinion. Judge Posner acknowledged the law could inconvenience some voters but concluded the burden was not severe enough to outweigh the state's legitimate interests.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case because voter identification laws were proliferating across the country and the constitutionality of such requirements presented a significant unresolved question of national importance. The case also raised fundamental questions about how courts should balance the state's interest in election integrity against the individual's right to vote without undue interference.
The Arguments
Indiana's photo identification law places an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, particularly for the elderly, poor, disabled, and minority voters who disproportionately lack government-issued photo ID. The law serves no legitimate purpose because in-person voter fraud — the only type of fraud the law could prevent — is virtually nonexistent in Indiana.
- The state could not point to a single documented case of in-person voter impersonation fraud in Indiana's entire history, meaning the law addressed a nonexistent problem while burdening real voters.
- Obtaining the underlying documents needed to get a free state photo ID — such as a certified birth certificate — costs money and requires travel, effectively functioning as a poll tax for indigent and elderly voters.
- The law was passed on a strictly partisan vote, with every Republican supporting it and every Democrat opposing it, revealing that the real motivation was to depress voter turnout among demographic groups that tend to support Democratic candidates.
- Between 2005 and the time of the lawsuit, tens of thousands of eligible Indiana voters lacked the qualifying photo ID, creating a significant barrier to exercising the franchise.
Indiana's voter ID law is a reasonable and nondiscriminatory regulation of elections that serves compelling state interests in preventing voter fraud, modernizing the electoral process, and safeguarding public confidence in the integrity of elections.
- The state has a legitimate and important interest in preventing voter fraud and protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process, even if documented instances of in-person fraud are rare.
- The law provides a safety valve: voters without ID can cast a provisional ballot and then confirm their identity at the county courthouse within ten days, and the state offers free photo identification to all registered voters.
- The burden imposed by the law is minimal for the vast majority of voters, the overwhelming majority of whom already possess qualifying identification for daily life activities such as driving, banking, or flying.