Indiana's Voter ID Law Will Answer Some Questions in November

LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Voter fraud and voter identification has been viewed through polarizing political lenses in recent years.

Conservatives complain that voter fraud is widespread and creating new identification standards was necessary to curb the problem. Liberals see new voter identification laws as voter suppression meant to keep the poor and minorities out of the voting place.

Indiana's new voter identification law was put to the test in May and will be highly scrutinize in November to see if the claims by either conservatives or liberals are true. A new challenge by the League of Women Voters in Indiana in June has brought the controversial law back into the spotlight.

The league's Indiana president Joanne Evers told the Associated Press that the challenge is based on the section of the state constitution requiring changes in voting eligibility to be enacted only by amending the constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 in April in favor of the Indiana law, stating it doesn't impose a severe burden on voter.

The Indiana law, considered one of the strictest in the country, states that voters must show a government-issued ID before casting a ballot. Those photo IDs must meet four criteria. The IDs must display the voter's photo, name that conforms to the name on the person's voter registration record, display an expiration date that's either current or expired sometime after the date of the last general election, and be issued by the State of Indiana or U.S. government.

Some student identifications created some confusion because the state accepted identifications state-run institutions, but not from private schools. Thus, a student with an Indiana University ID could be used if it met the other criteria, but not a student with an ID from Notre Dame.