Convictions: Slate's blog on legal issues

Not Nader!

Ooof—well, Dawn, I certainly didn't intend to leave the impression there are no differences between Indiana Dems and Republicans. And perhaps I may be granted some dispensation for having lived in the district that elected Dan Burton, R-Ind., to Congress. Repeatedly. By overwhelming margins. My, I hope far less troubling, thinking was just that if one were to put the Indiana parties on a national scale of liberal to conservative, former Gov., say, Evan Bayh, would not fall very close to, say, Ralph Nader.

But my more serious point was to raise questions about how flawed Stevens' reasoning really is here. I'd like to think my bona fides in securing free and fair elections for all are decent, particularly after having spent the last two presidential elections, for example, doing poll monitoring in blistering Florida. And I've no doubt the Indiana ID requirement will pose a burden on some voters, most especially those at the economic margin. But I read the splintered decision to leave exactly those challenges open, no?