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VOTING

Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Blocked

Judge ruled that ID was too hard to get hold of in time for Nov 6

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t +

Image: Democracy Now

Pennsylvania voters won't need to show ID on Nov 6, because the state's controversial voter ID law has been put on ice until 2013 by Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson.

Judge Simpson based his ruling on testimony about the difficulty of getting photo ID, including long lines and uninformed staff at DMV centers.

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Do you support PA's voter ID law?

96 Comments (view in Forum)

  • TeamAmerica
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    @Nemesis3X If voter ID came with a free phone or coupon for a couple of free meals at McDonalds, we would not have heard a peep from anyone.

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  • TeamAmerica
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    How do these disenfranchised people buy beer, a fishing license, cash a check, rent a car, use a credit card, serve jury duty, buy a gun, get a job, get welfare, or any other thing that people normally do that requires ID?
  • TrueAtheist
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    Also, if you can't buy a gun without an ID, than why did the law state it was ok to use gun licenses to vote? Yet not veteran ID cards, SS cards, or student IDs? If you need an ID to buy a gun than people with gun licenses have IDs right? So why not just say they need the ID?
  • Buzzfriendly
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    @TrueAtheist I agree, and owning a gun is a right. I understand the logic of requiring an ID for voting, as I do for owning a gun. Very sound logic in fact, the problem is, for better or worse, the US Constitution doesn't state this as a requirement. In fact since everyone seems to want my ID I try to avoid places that want it for no reason. I try to use cash, I go to a pharmacy that does require an ID, or if possible I flash my employee badge which tells you nothing unless you can scan it or are simply happy with looking at my face.
    I grew in in the latter part of the cold war and the thought of having an ID to do anything was something only communist nations required of its citizens. Makes me wonder who really won that war.
  • TrueAtheist
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    @TeamAmerica Umm.... no, no it doesn't. Or at least it didn't used to. There are several volunteers out there registering people to vote and I've never seen one of them ask for ID, you just have to fill out a form with your name, address, affiliated party, dob, and signature. When I was a teenager I registered people to vote also along with collecting signatures on petitions and back then I was not required to ask anyone for their ID in order to register them. If you register at the DMV when you get a DLIC or State ID then it's just something they're allowing you to do as part of the process of getting said ID.

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  • AceLuby
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    I don't support any voter ID laws. First, individual voter fraud is extremely ineffectual, heck, most actual voting is extremely ineffectual, committing fraud on a vote by vote basis is a waste of time. Second, many people cannot obtain their birth certificate on their own and there are no state run centers to help with this aspect of obtaining an ID. Third, students who live out of state, but go to school in state, should not be forced to purchase a state ID in order to cast their vote. Besides the obvious disenfranchising that is bound to happen with this law what really gets me is that voters would be forced to purchase an ID in order to vote, that is a poll tax and is unconstitutional.
  • TeamAmerica
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    Pa was offering the ID free of charge. ""If a voter cannot afford to obtain an acceptable ID, including the free PennDOT Photo ID discussed below, without the payment of a fee (for example, the cost of a certified birth certificate or transportation to a PennDOT Driver’s License Center to obtain the free PennDOT Photo ID), the voter can vote provisionally at the polling place and sign an affirmation to this effect. "
  • AceLuby
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    @TeamAmerica How are the provisional ballots verified and counted? More importantly, how is this preventing fraud? Why can't someone cast 5 provisional ballots?
  • TeamAmerica
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    @AceLuby I'm just refuting your comment about it being a poll tax and costing money, it's free. As for the provisional ballots, you'll have to ask the Pa Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation. Currently 30 states require ID at the polls. It's only a matter of time until they all do.
  • AceLuby
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    @TeamAmerica It's not free, it's just that the taxpayers pay for it as a group instead of the individual, but you are right that it is constitutional if done that way. But to the larger point, if they can submit votes without an ID anyway, what is the point besides adding more cost to the taxpayer and more bureaucracy to the voting process to solve a problem that doesn't really exist? BTW, only 9 states require a photo ID, 15 require some sort of ID, and 6 request an ID, but it isn't mandatory.
  • LGRepublican
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    I'll bet if any of those people "without ID's" wanted to buy a gun the left wouldn't be concerned about disenfranchised citizens not able to exercise their rights.....
  • VCP
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    I agree with you. It was a desperate attempt to win an election because after four years Romney was the best they could do. So the Republican Party became "The end justifies the means" Party.
  • CanadianIndy
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    Not all Republicans are evil. I lean more to the left, but I would have picked Ron Paul over Barack Obama any day.

    Though I agree with the fact that this law is an affront to the basic rights of the people of the democratic nation, I reject your accusation that Reps are evil. I know many conservatives here in Canada (who align with your American Republicans) and they're actually quite pleasant. We don't agree...but that doesn't mean they're evil.
  • CanadianIndy
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    @VCP I do agree with your statement, however. The right could have done a lot better than Mitt Romney. I'm not saying Romney is a 'bad' guy, or whatever, but there were better choices.

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  • DARSB
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    Voter ID is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist and would not have prevented the current Strategic Alliance registration fraud scheme. We ought to be encouraging voters, not placing obstacles.
  • Nemesis3X
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    @MongoAPillager they refuse to believe it (unless its the Republicans), just like they refuse to believe welfare fraud/career!!!! Right @Sonny?

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  • Cheenoguy
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    Yes, anytime something is difficult for the poor or minorities it is because they are lazy. It couldn't be that the program designed by a guy who openly claims that it was done so Romney would win PA was inefficient and politically skewed. Wait I forgot the Republican slogan. F$&@ you if you are poor or non-white.
  • LGRepublican
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    @Cheenoguy Oh that's right, expecting someone to take some initiative and responsibility to exercise their right must be a GOP ploy. Voting has become so pathetically easy the only step left is for someone to drive to your house, hand you a ballot, and vote for you. Beyond all that, that still doesn't answer the question as to what some lefty would say if not having an ID would "suppress" someone's right to purchase a firearm. But that pretty much follows the liberal slogan of we protect rights unless you want a firearm then f&^* you.....
  • Cheenoguy
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    @LGRepublican I know the whole world is a conspiracy to take your guns and money but trying reading the article. The law is not been completely revoked just put off because the government trained employees were not well trained in what they were doing as well as there being a difficult process in general. Some form of this ID law will be in place for the next election. The law you want will be in place, but the judge wisely ruled to not let government incompetence keep people from government.
    You are acting like people can just show up and vote. They still have to be registered first, which is the process that insures people are qualified to vote. This process has worked so effectively that there has been virtually NO voter fraud. If I remember the quote correctly there has been something like 10 instances of voter fraud that could be stopped via ID since 2000. So why does this law need to be made? As was stated by PA Republicans: so Mitt Romney can win.
    The amount of voter fraud= virtually none. The number of firearm assaults= ridiculous. No one is ever found murdered by a voter card. We have an epidemic of gun violence that needs to be stemmed. It doesn't compare accurately to the epidemic of people voting opposite to what you want.
    I am for a voter ID system, but it needs to be done fairly and a full election cycle ahead of time. Just as the judge in PA ordered.
  • LGRepublican
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    @Cheenoguy It depends on where you are. In Wisconsin, the voting rules are so lack that you can register same day on site with your utility bill and only have to have "lived" at the address for 28 days. Needless to say, its ripe for the picking. I hear the vote fraud "isn't a problem" excuse quite a bit. It's hard to prove something when there are no tools available to gather proof. Consider a teacher who tells their students there will be no cheating on the test, then gets told by the Principal that they can't check the students or observe them, the teacher has to "take their word" they weren't cheating. Hard to prove any cheating took place now isn't it.....
  • mimi57
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    How can it be so hard to get an ID.?! I guess they didn't know when the election was...this is just a way for them to play their game...what, Voter fraud!
    I can't imagine that, it seems pretty obvious, you'd think they could come up
    with a more clever scam, that one's really lame!

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  • LGRepublican
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    I'll also bet the waiting in lines or having to travel wouldn't be a "burden" if it meant getting one of those free Obama Phones. It's like the old saying, excuses are like a$$h**es.......
  • ibcingu
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    As it should have been. If these nuts wanted to challenge the laws, they've had several months, if not years, to do so. Awfully funny that they chose to do it when Obama is ahead. No surprise though. I'd expect nothing less from the GOP.
  • Jeff_Woehrle
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    @DARSB Actually, the wails from the liberals beg to differ. Not only does the left not want voter fraud to be prevented, they also want it to be not detected. Worth noting that the law was not thrown out, just delayed. Hmmmm...
  • mimi57
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    Well I guess we know who's going to win THAT state! Obama's Chicago Politics have found their way to Pennsylvania...It doesn't get dirtier than that!
  • tomincali
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    funny that one of those folks against honest election by using id just got a few years in prison for voter fraud, kind of shows the real reason they want no id to vote.

    also funny that to get into those democratic conventions id has to be shown yet something as important as a vote they want no part of. again double standards by the dishonest who support fraud.
  • Canoochee
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    @tomincali I know I was being facetous. What I don't get is there is no shortage of transportation when it comes to hauling crowds of voters to the polls.

    I wonder why they are so adverse to getting photo id's for people who don't have them.
  • IMAQT
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    Got to correct lots of you folks here. There is no constitutional right to vote. They cannot discriminate, but there is no constitutional right to vote. http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#v...
    "The Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. You cannot deny the right to vote because of race or gender. Citizens of Washington DC can vote for President; 18-year-olds can vote; you can vote even if you fail to pay a poll tax. The Constitution also requires that anyone who can vote for the "most numerous branch" of their state legislature can vote for House members and Senate members.

    Note that in all of this, though, the Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example. It does require that Representatives be chosen and Senators be elected by "the People," and who comprises "the People" has been expanded by the aforementioned amendments several times. Aside from these requirements, though, the qualifications for voters are left to the states. And as long as the qualifications do not conflict with anything in the Constitution, that right can be withheld. For example, in Texas, persons declared mentally incompetent and felons currently in prison or on probation are denied the right to vote. It is interesting to note that though the 26th Amendment requires that 18-year-olds must be able to vote, states can allow persons younger than 18 to vote, if they chose to."

    I can provide numerous other links, but I am sure you can google it yourself.
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