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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Ind. Law - Bills on political yard signs, voter ID

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette editorial page editor Tracy Warner includes in his commentary today:

Campaign yard signs might be coming home. Developers who create subdivisions frequently seek to promote attractive appearances and eliminate clutter, but homeowners and politicos have long wondered about the First Amendment implications of neighborhoods prohibiting political signs. A bill before the Indiana Senate would eliminate any uncertainty.

Senate Bill 64 would override neighborhood restrictive covenants on political signs and explicitly allow them from 30 days before until five days after an election. The proposal would still allow some loose restrictions on size and location, but the bill would specifically allow “a sign that is at least as large as signs commonly displayed during election campaigns” placed in a homeowner’s window or property.

Expressly allowing the signs has even more importance in Fort Wayne, where the City Council voted in 2007 to crack down on placing signs in the public right of way. With the signs essentially limited to private property, the Senate bill – approved by the Committee on Elections – would clearly allow homeowners in all neighborhoods to display them.

Voter ID fix. Indiana Republicans derided the Indiana Court of Appeals for ruling the state’s Voter ID law was unconstitutional, all but calling the judges incompetent. The ruling, they said, will never stand.

Perhaps, but just in case, Republican state Sen. Michael Young has filed Senate Bill 91, which would address the very defect in the law that the appeals court cited. The court ruled the Voter ID law created unequal standards for people voting at the polls on Election Day, who must produce ID, and those voting absentee, who don’t. Young’s bill would require absentee voters to produce a voter identification.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 19, 2010 08:44 AM
Posted to Indiana Law