Nunsense

The Supreme Court has once again kept us safe from a deadly enemy -- elderly nuns who were trying to vote.

Published May 6, 2008 9:17PM (EDT)

Via my friend Steve Benen, I see that we're already feeling the effects of a recent Supreme Court decision upholding an Indiana law that requires residents to produce photo identification in order to vote.

The AP reports:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Way to go, SCOTUS. You've protected us from an epidemic of voter fraud that, um, doesn't actually exist -- and, of course, from those very, very threatening elderly nuns as well. I feel so much more confident in American democracy already.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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