First, the news story:
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 Some showed up with outdated passports.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."
Karen Tumulty responds by saying "I don't think anyone expected this."
Except Josh Marshall, whose TPM empire has been covering this issue in depth for more than a year. And the title of his post tonight? "Not a Bug, a Feature.."
There has been extensive research on the subject of voter fraud, and all of it shows that fraud is virtually nonexistent. The point of these sorts of "reforms" isn't to prevent fraud; it is to prevent the types of people who don't have drivers licenses - the poor, the elderly, and the urban - from voting. Why? Because those people usually vote Democratic.
It really is becoming a truism: If you hear a politician or media figure say that "no one could have predicted" something, it means that for those who have been paying attention it has been obvious all along.
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