The U.S. Supreme Court has effectively reinstated the poll tax that once kept minorities and the poor from voting, and it did so for no justifiable reason.

    The high court upheld an Indiana state law that requires a form of government-issued photo identification card for anyone to vote. Indiana lawmakers approved the bill on the grounds of fighting voter fraud.

    But even in upholding the law on Monday, the court said there is no evidence of voter fraud. The court traded away the ability of many poor Americans to vote out of deference to conservative fears that someone might cheat.

    This is fractured logic. The state is now permitted to deny access to the polls to hundreds of voters - documented cases of such were entered into evidence - to prevent some potential, as yet undefined, bad guy from slipping into the booth and voting twice. So much for the concept of voting as the most sacred right in a democracy.

    The photo-identification ruse is nothing short of voter suppression, enacted by Indiana's Republican legislature to keep down the vote of traditionally Democratic-leaning minorities and senior citizens. It is those people who will have the most trouble getting state-approved photo-identification cards and who will likely miss the vote.

    The poll tax long had its supporters in the Old South. It cost only a couple of dollars to vote, its apologists said. That wasn't much of a sacrifice for the sacred right.

    But the poll tax wasn't charged to most whites. That's because people whose ancestors had voted before minorities won the right to vote after the Civil War were grandfathered in. The whole idea of a poll tax, as with the identification card, is to suppress the vote of the poor.

    The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned poll taxes in 1964, but six justices effectively reinstated it this week with this decision.

    How difficult can it be for someone to get a photo-identification card? A lot harder than many of us think.

    Testimony before the court centered on the poor who do not own vehicles and who, therefore, do not have driver's licenses. They can file for other forms of identification, but those cards require personal trips to government offices, which can be expensive, difficult or impossible for the infirm. Many citizens also don't have access to their birth certificates, a key document needed in getting the proper identification in Indiana.

    Just as those who supported the poll tax denied that it was an impediment to voting, those who support this identification requirement say it is not a big deal. But it is a big deal for the poor, and that's why the Indiana legislature enacted this law. They know they implemented a new tactic in our nation's sorry history of denying the vote to our poor and minority populations.

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