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A Pennsylvania judge has rejected claims that the state’s controversial voter-ID law disenfranchises poor, urban voters. As a result, the state’s 8.2 million registered voters will be required to present a state-approved voter ID when they head to the polls on November 6. [...] The ruling makes Pennsylvania the 30th state to enforce voter ID laws, up from 24 states in the last election. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department is continuing its review of the law and whether it violates the U.S. Voting Rights Act. The case is most likely headed to the Supreme Court. – Audio Interview with Election Law Expert Richard Hasen
A REPUBLICAN-BACKED law in Pennsylvania that is meant to depress the vote and disenfranchise people in order for Mitt Romney to have a chance of winning the state in November was upheld on Wednesday. I write it that way, because it is the truth. The only reason to suddenly make people provide a government issued voter I.D. to vote in a state where no voter fraud has appeared, with no proof offered during the case that it’s a worry, is to disenfranchise voters and suppress the vote. That this law would dramatically affect poor voters and people of color is obvious, but it also impacts the elderly and the infirm as well. If someone is in their 80s or 90s, or perhaps never had a driver’s license because they are too poor to have a car, this year that person will have to get one or not be able to vote.
Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state now that it wasn’t before, because even though Republicans always hope to win it in presidential election years they never do. There is no other reason for Republicans to contort the legislative process so thoroughly other than it benefits them, with this new voter I.D. law now tilting the state in Mitt Romney’s favor.
The New York Times editorial states the problem plainly.
There is no evidence that Judge Simpson contorted law and precedent to reach his conclusion. He even described Mr. Turzai’s comment as “disturbing” and “tendentious.” But his ruling, in a case brought by potentially disenfranchised voters, is a clear and disturbing illustration of the way Republicans have manipulated legislation for their own ends, placing a veneer of civic responsibility on a low-minded and sleazy political ploy.
The real reasons for voter ID laws are quite clear. The desire to dampen the Democratic vote after 2006 — and particularly in the wake of President Obama’s election — prompted six states to decide, virtually simultaneously, to pass voter ID laws. Their stated reason — combating voter fraud — is easily dismissed because there are virtually no documented cases of impersonation fraud that could be reduced with an ID card. Mr. Turzai was simply indiscreet; most Republicans know better than to speak the truth out loud.
Judge Simpson acknowledged, as did the state in the lawsuit, that there have been no prosecutions or even investigations of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania. He said there wasn’t any evidence of that in Indiana, either, yet the United States Supreme Court upheld a nearly identical ID law there in 2008, so he was obliged to do the same.
Appeals will be filed today.
Then the issue gets even stickier. From Philly.com:
A quirk of timing on the state Supreme Court could add another subplot.
With Justice Joan Orie Melvin suspended, the court has just six members, an even split of Democrats and Republicans. Party affiliation might be deemed irrelevant in many cases they hear, but politics are baked deeply into this one.
Republicans pushed the law through the legislature with a party-line vote, and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) famously declared that the law would help GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney win the state. Democrats pounced on that, contending it proved the law was concocted for political reasons.
If the high court splits 3-3 on the issue, Simpson’s ruling would remain intact. For the Supreme Court to settle the case, one justice would have to buck his or her party.
Observers are particularly focused on the role Chief Justice Ronald Castille, a Republican, could play.
Castille irked some Republicans when he delivered the majority opinion this year that threw out a plan by GOP lawmakers to redraw Pennsylvania’s legislative map. His role in the voter ID case could burnish his party bona fides or burn them.
Sorry, Big T, I have to disagree with you on this one. I think all states should require voter ID, no matter what.
People have plenty of time to make arrangements to get their ID if they don’t have one already.
If you’re talking about a uniform I.D., you’re also talking about a database that can track citizens with today’s technology. That can be debated by citizens & decided, though it makes me queasy, but then I’m a proponent of privacy. The law has to be universal to be fair. This PA law is neither. It’s predatory.
You are woefully out of touch with the life of the poor and elderly if you think this is about “time.”
But you are making the case that the Voting Rights Act demolished when it did away with discrimination of people of color who had less education because it was built into the American system.
This is about suppressing the vote, which is exactly what it will do if upheld, which it may be, given the PA Supreme Court political struggle, because one judge is disqualified due to corruption. For Republicans it’s mission accomplished.
Ironic that at the time Social Security was introduced, it was conservatives who objected to the ID requirement. If it benefits the riff-raff, they’re against it. If it keeps them where they belong, they’re for it.
Supressing our voting rights for political gain is unpatriotic and unAmerican. Ask some combat vets what they were fighting for – some of them will be elderly and not have gvt issued photo id.
Ask grandma who hasn’t driven a car in 10 years why she doesn’t have a current Gvt. issued driver’s license —
Every American has the right to vote even if the don’t have enough money to go obtain id. This is our birthright and is democracy.
This year’s election and finally the power of the internet and the OWS movement is shining a bright light on the ugliness of the right wing republican party and its financiers who want consolidate their power even more than they have over the past 30 years.
I hope the Justice Department acts against these voter supression tactics.
Don’t hold your breath…
I used to cringe whenever I read one of the regular TM readers refer to the GOP as a sheer criminal and hate enterprise. Not anymore, that’s exactly what they are, they have decided not to hide it anymore.
I call this the “Obama effect” to borrow from TM. GOP reps and their voters are still stunned and shocked by what happened in 2008 and are absolutely determined to ensure that no minority, especially from the Democratic party, ever comes close to the office of the Presidency.
You’ve played that race-card so much that I think Al Sharpton’s face has worn off. Why not play the Ace next time instead of the Joker.
“I used to cringe whenever I read one of the regular TM readers refer to the GOP as a sheer criminal and hate enterprise. Not anymore, that’s exactly what they are, they have decided not to hide it anymore.”
Thankyou, thankyouvermuch.
very weak argument, considering you need an ID for just about everything else that you do in this country. It’s really a B.S. argument.
I don’t need ID to do a whole lot of things in America. Apparently, that makes me really special.
Until a few years ago, most ID requirements had to do with financial fraud, which was a real phenomenon that cost financial firms lots of money. Nowadays, there are more times when it’s required, mostly in the name of “fighting terrorism”, most of which, incidentally, have little or no effect on terrorism.
So the fact that we have to do this “for just about everything else” is irrelevant. We shouldn’t have to for some of it, and there’s a clear justification for some as well. Like the TSA, this is another waste of money in aid of preventing something that happens rarely if at all, and won’t be the least bit effective for what it’s supposed to do.
I should say “what it’s allegedly supposed to do”, because it’s pretty clear that it will do exactly what the GOP wants – prevent the poor and minorities from voting – which works mostly to their benefit.
You must be very special Cujo, and just get by on facial recognition, because I’m having to flash my ID just about everywhere, buying a car, getting a job, re-financing a house, buying tickets, picking up tickets in will call, if I get pulled over for speeding, etc., getting in to a bar.
What stats do you have that most poor and minorities don’t have ID?
And as far as the elderly go, my Mom is 93. If they can get to the voting booth, then surely they can get somewhere to get the proper ID. Why don’t you all hire buses and take a load of the poor and minorities down to the courthouse to get their lD’s, like you do for other events, if you’re so concerned about it. Now that sounds like a better idea to me than just complaining about the Voter ID laws.
You’re the one trying to deny people the right to vote because they don’t have ID. Once again, the onus is on you. Where are the stats that say there is voting fraud going on? I don’t have to prove jack. I say it’s not going on in any numbers worth worrying about. If you know that’s not true, prove it.
I’m not going to get into trying to prove a negative, for reasons that anyone who remembers basic logic understands. I really wish people would stay awake in elementary philosophy courses.
Groan. This again? Really?
You do not have a Constitutional Right to buy liquor, get on a plane, get a library card, etc. etc. ETC.
You DO have a Constitutional Right (there are AMENDMENTS which deal with it) to vote.
ID cards cost money.
Poll taxes are ILLEGAL under the CONSTITUTION.
Therefore, ID Cards are UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Get it? I doubt it?
Regarding the DOJ:
The Justice Department could also challenge the law, but the US Supreme Court has already ruled on the Constitutionality of voter ID laws, and there are no pre-clearance restrictions in Pennsylvania, so that’s a tough road.
How come it’s always assumed that it’s the blacks that lack government issued ID? What about the white-trash ‘bitter-clingers’, won’t they be equally disenfranchised?
Is it the soft-bigotry of low expectations to believe that these potentially disenfranchised poor blacks are unable to obtain a government issued ID? As, from a quick search, it appears that ID is not, in fact, necessary.
People presume that low down white trash folk know someone with a pickup truck and a gun that can drive ‘em to get an I.D. and shoot anyone who tries to stop ‘em.
/end snark.
Everything I’ve read on this matter has pointed to the simple fact that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, so why the urgent need to enact new voting laws? The GOP needs bluer states to swing red – end of story.
Citizens United equates money to speech; and this ridiculous ruling opened the door for those with the largest pools of capital to choose who we vote for by making the average citizen donation a pittance…an afterthought, and now the GOP is complicit in obvious voter suppression tactics that begin to chip away at the last (and only) recourse for those of us not in the ‘big club’, the individual vote.
Who’s next on the voter suppression list?
Had a Democratic Judge done this to Republicans they’d be screaming for him to be disbarred. Limbaugh, FOXNews, Hannity, you name it would have been screeching bloody murder.
To the useless left however, its business as usual.
We quietly appeal to a higher authority — a higher version of the obedient corporate judiciary.
Let’s stipulate it’s a big issue on lefty blogs, but it doesn’t seem to have much reverberation outside of that self-ascribed definition of universe.
As evidence, I googled and could only find a Minnesota poll even bothered to have been taken……..and so even the relatively liberal Sven and Olies…..were 80/20 in favor of some form of ID.
Only 20 states remain without some form of ID and that’s fallen fast in the past 10 years. I think the libs are left chasing the departed train on this issue.
Yes, we’re just so unfashionable and not with it.
If you would be so kind as to regale me with the necessity for new voter laws…I’m all ears.
“..were 80/20 in favor of some form of ID.”
Well that’s quite a difference from a state issued photo ID isn’t it.
Voter I.D. laws fall in “strict” and “non-strict” varieties, with provisional ballots available in certain cases. Some are photo, some not.
Voter ID: State Requirements
Contrary to pulling facts out of thin air, this subject is very closely monitored, because it must comport to the Voting Rights Act, though it’s not surprising to see some don’t have any respect for its importance.
People fought for rights that Republicans, who left the Democratic Party because it became too minority rights oriented in the 1960s, continue to work to deny.
” People fought for rights that Republicans, who left the Democratic Party because it became too minority rights oriented in the 1960s, continue to work to deny.”
Now, now Ms. Marsh…someone is gonna say you’re playing the race card again!
In fact, I was yesterday in emails! I kid you not.
I prefer the Australian model; every citizen is required to vote and will be fined if they do not. This is giving democracy more that lip service…
I am in TOTAL agreement with this one!!