CNN.com Supreme Court Reporter Failed to Note Key Facts in Indiana Voter ID Case

In a 10:15 EDT post today at CNN.com, producer Bill Mears noted the 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court upholding an Indiana law requiring photo ID in order to vote. Yet Mears left out that Democrats who challenged the law were unable to produce a single voter who could prove he or she was unable to vote due to the law nor did Mears point out mechanisms the Indiana law has in place for provisional balloting and free voter ID cards.

Here's Mears's four-paragraph blog post at the CNN Political Ticker:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Supreme Court on Monday backed Indiana's law requiring voters to show photo identification, despite concerns thousands of elderly, poor, and minority voters could be locked out of their right to cast ballots.

The 6-3 vote allows Indiana to require the identification when it holds its statewide primary next month.

At issue is whether state laws designed to stem voter fraud end up disenfranchising large groups of Americans who might lack proper documents to prove they are eligible to vote.

The justices wrestled with a balancing test of sorts to ensure both state and individual voter interests were addressed, in what has become a highly partisan legal and political fight.

But as Los Angeles Times staffer David G. Savage noted in his April 28 article:

[T]he Democrats who sued to block Indiana's law in 2005 did not name a single plaintiff who had been barred from voting because of the law. And that failure doomed the legal challenge.

What's more as the AP's Mark Sherman noted in an updated article*, Indiana takes care to ensure everyone who wants to vote can vote:

Indiana provides IDs free of charge to the poor and allows voters who lack photo ID to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

For more NB coverage of Bill Mears's bias, check here.

*I earlier blogged about Sherman's initial article, released shortly after the Court's ruling was announced. Sherman's updated article, posted shortly after 11:30 a.m. EDT, has more information.