Voters Who Wear Black Robes

Some who wear black robes get to vote. Some don't.

You wouldn't know it from recent media coverage, but the Supreme Court continues to hand down decisions and quite often, they suck. Within the last few weeks, the Court upheld an Indiana law requiring all voters to show a photo ID. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court said that the law, which is heavily supported by those (Republicans) who purport to fear voter fraud and heavily opposed by those (Democrats) who actually fear voter suppression. While the proponents of the law could show no actual evidence of voter fraud, a majority of the Court clearly believed them.

Well, nothing like a quick reality check. In the Indiana primary today, a dozen nuns, all in their 80s and 90s, showed up to vote but were turned away — by one of their own! — because they did not have driver's licenses. Moreover, they were denied provisional ballots because it would be impossible for them to get processed by the Indiana DMV within the necessary 10-day period before the state certifies the election. Some of the nuns — one was 98 — showed up in wheelchairs with outdated passports. The story is really quite appalling. Read it here.

I mention the bit about media coverage because of an outstanding study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The nonpartisan group does empirical research, tracking which media outlets are covering which stories, and how much. The PEJ concluded that last week, in all the coverage of the 2008 campaign, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was mentioned in 42% of the stories, while Sen. Hillary Clinton (she's still running for president, folks) was mentioned in 41% of stories. This is troublesome.

According to the PEJ study, of all the stories last week, the campaign ranked first, receiving 38% of the coverage. Understandable, perhaps. Coverage of the Supreme Court, by the way, was 10th, at 1%.

Too bad for the nuns. Like the justices, they wear black robes, too, but I guess their votes don't matter.