Media Center
Voter ID Case Takes Twist
FWDailyNews.com
January 9, 2008
By: Cindy Bevington
Special Assignments Editor
KPC Media Group
WASHINGTON – On the eve of a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Indiana Voter ID law has become a story with a twist: One
of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two
states.
Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also
claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both (states.
Monday night from her Florida home, Ewing said she and her husband Frank “winter in Florida and summer in Indiana.” She admitted to registering to vote in both states, but stressed that she¹s never voted in Florida.
“This shows that the Indiana ID law worked here, which also calls into question why the critics are so vehemently against this law, especially with persons like this, who may not have a legal right to vote in this election.”
The law
In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring Hoosiers to present photo
identification when they vote in person on Election Day, or when they cast a ballot in person at a county clerk¹s office prior to Election Day. Voters without an ID may cast a provisional ballot, then bring an ID back to their county clerk or election board within 10 days.
The law does not apply to those voting absentee or to citizens whose polling place is in a state-licensed care facility where the voter resides.
Proponents of the law, including Indiana Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita, believe it will better protect Hoosiers from voter fraud and identity theft.
Critics say it unfairly burdens the poor, elderly and members of certain faiths, such as Amish.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, other states have voter ID laws, but only Florida and Georgia join Indiana in requiring photo IDs to vote. Indiana¹s law has been called one of the strictest.
Even before Indiana¹s law was in place, opponents – including Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – were lining up against it, apparently in fear that, if it stood, other states would follow. In 2005 Obama introduced a Senate resolution urging the Department of Justice to challenge any state law mandating photo IDs for voting.
In Indiana, the Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters and numerous other groups or agencies representing elderly, minority and disadvantaged voters have been challenging the law in court with the help of the Brennan Center for Justice, which states on its Web site that it is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice.
So far, the law has been upheld by a federal judge and a panel in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the law today and, according to the Brennan Center, “(It) is the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore.”
A standing ovation
Gearing up for the high court¹s review, news media around the country have been trumpeting the ordeals that Ewing and others in Indiana allegedly suffered due to Indiana¹s voter ID law. One news story related how Ewing received a standing ovation from poll workers in Lafayette in November 2006, after she spent several hours on Election Day obtaining an Indiana photo ID.
Earlier that day, Ewing tried to use her Florida driver¹s license for identification, but poll workers wouldn¹t accept it as a valid ID for voting. She was told she could cast a provisional vote, but she declined. Her birth certificate wasn’t acceptable because it didn¹t have her married – and therefore identifying – name on it, according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court by the Brennan Center.
It took four hours and visits to two cities to secure the
necessary documents for Ewing to vote, the brief and news stories said.
‘I¹m confused’
According to Ewing and Ann Nucatola, public information director for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Ewing surrendered her Indiana driver¹s license in 2000, when she moved to Florida and obtained her Florida license. Nucatola said that a driver must have a Florida address to obtain a Florida driver¹s license.
“And if they own property in two states they have to get a license that says ‘valid in Florida only,’” Nucatola said.
Ewing said Monday that her license is a “regular” one that she uses in both states. She renewed it in 2007 on a Punta Gorda, Fla. address.
At the Charlotte County, Fla. voter registration office, Sandy Wharton, vote qualifying office manager, said Ewing registered to vote in Charlotte County on Sept. 18, 2002, and signed and oath that she was a Florida resident and understood that falsifying the voter application was a third-degree felony punishable by prison and a fine up to $5,000. Wharton said her office checked Ewing’s Florida residency and qualified her on Oct. 2, 2002. On Oct. 4, 2002, they mailed
her Florida voter card to her, to the West Lafayette, Ind. address that Ewing gave as a mailing address.
However, Ewing didn’t vote in Florida that year, nor has she ever voted in Charlotte County, Wharton said. But, she did vote in the November 2002 elections in Tippecanoe County, Ind., according to Heather Maddox, co-director of elections and registration in Tippecanoe.
Ewing confirmed that she is registered in both states to vote, but at first said the Florida registration came automatically with her driver’s license. She repeatedly denied signing the oath on the Florida application. She also said Indiana mailed her an absentee ballot, but she didn’t use it or vote that year.
However, Heather Maddox, co-director of election
registration in Tippecanoe County, said Ewing voted there in 2002, 2003 and 2004, before the Indiana ID law took effect in 2005.
When informed that the Florida voter office said she’d registered
personally in 2002 for a Florida voter card, and had even faxed this newspaper a copy of it, Ewing said, “Well, why did I do
that? I¹m confused. I can’t recall.” She reiterated that, even though she’s registered in two states, she only votes in Indiana, adding that she does have a car plated in Florida.
That doesn’t satisfy Florida officials.
“She can only be registered to vote in the place where she claims
residency,² Wharton said. “You can’t be registered in two states. She has to claim one place or the other.”
Ordinarily when someone registers to vote in Florida, the state informs the election board where the applicant was previously registered. But according to Wharton, Ewing did not inform Florida that she was ever registered to vote anywhere else.
“She signed an oath saying she was a qualified elector and a
legal resident of Florida,” Wharton said. “And the space where she was
supposed to tell us where she was previously registered, she left blank.”
Homestead
A check with Charlotte County’s online property tax records shows that Ewing owns property there. One requirement in Florida to claim homestead is to show a valid voter ID or sign an affidavit of residency – which she did when she applied for her voter card. She claimed a homestead exemption on the Florida property in 2003 – the same time she was claiming a homestead exemption on property she owned in Indiana, according to Tippecanoe deputy auditor Heather Satler. Satler said that Ewing’s Indiana exemption began in 1994 and ended in 2004, when the exemption was removed because the state discovered she wasn¹t living there.
Tuesday Ewing said the homestead “problem came up” when she married in 2002. “But that was taken care of,” she said. She also said her main
residence is in Indiana, and that she pays “some” taxes in Indiana on a “small annuity” she receives.
“But I feel like I’m a victim here,” Ewing said. “I never intended to do anything wrong. I know a lot of people in Florida in this same situation – they call us ‘Snowbirds,’ you know.”
‘It works’
Friday, Rokita said he believes the Indiana voter ID law protects
against identity theft and voter fraud. It makes provisions for people who are too indigent to pay for a photo ID, and allows people to file a
religious objection to it. It gives people who don’t have an ID a chance to file a provisional vote, and essentially doesn’t deny anyone who really wants to vote the right to vote, as opponents claim, Rokita said.
Rokita’s 83-page brief to the Supreme Court says that numerous
voter-impersonation fraud reports have been recorded across the country, and that other types of alleged voter fraud are under investigation in Indiana.
It also points out that “the only published study of Indiana voter turnout since implementation of the Voter ID Law shows no negative disparate impact.”
He admits that no voter fraud has been proven yet in Indiana.
But, he said, that doesn’t mean the law isn’t necessary.
Monday, upon learning of Ewing’s dual voter registration and homestead exemptions, Rokita said this was an example that Indiana¹s law works.
“The facts as I have heard them go to the heart of one of the reasons we have a photo ID law,” Rokita said. “I want everyone to vote once ... but the evidence uncovered here brings up several questions of whether this person is a resident of Florida or Indiana – and the fact of the matter is that Hoosiers should vote here.
No criminal intent
Contacted on her way to Washington for the hearing, Joanne Evers,
president of the Indiana League of Women Voters (ILWV) said she had no idea that Ewing – who is listed first in the ILWV’s Supreme Court brief – had dual voter registrations.
Even so, she said, it doesn’t diminish the opposition¹s case.
“(Ewing) is an example of how difficult it was to get an ID, period,” Evers said. “This law was intended to catch someone who is impersonating someone else and votes twice, not to catch someone who is perhaps trying to understand the bureaucracy of two states.
“I don¹t think Faye was trying to do anything illegal. The fact that she did not vote in Florida leads me to believe she did not intend anything criminal. I was at the poll when she was unable to vote and saw what she had to go through to get an Indiana ID card. I think (all of this) is part of the confusion. I hope the law is not to befuddle people trying to do the right thing.”
Evers pointed out that many other voters experienced similar problems, including a disabled senior citizen who had been voting all of her life and who didn¹t have the proper ID for the new law.
Justin Levitt, counsel for the Brennan Center, said he hadn¹t known that Ewing was registered in two states, either. But, like Evers, Levitt doesn’t think Ewing¹s case has relevancy to the arguments the Supreme Court is considering.
“Certainly (Ewing’s) not a poster child for this,” Levitt said. “And those sorts of things unfortunately do happen. But for the vast majority they have the permanent residency in one place and haven’t gotten an ID or driver’s license somewhere else.
“I can certainly appreciate that on the eve of the hearing the secretary of state would say this is why we need the law. But I disagree. It’s to keep people from pretending to be somebody else, and there’s no indication that (Ewing) is going to polls pretending to be somebody else.
“The secretary has not yet shown a case of voter fraud. And there’s no question that the law is hurting real, eligible Indiana residents.”
Thursday: Local citizens and officials react to Indiana’s Voter ID law.
