Tag: voterID

VoterID on trial in Pennsylvania

VoterID on trial in Pennsylvania

Posted on by Jack

Over a year ago the Republicans who control the state legislature and the governor’s office in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decided that we needed to spend millions of dollars and disenfranchise many voters in order to fight the virtually nonexistent crime of voter impersonation.

I specify Republicans because the law did not attract a single Democratic vote. And I think it is not just coincidence that this is likely to disenfranchise many more Democratic voters than Republicans.

Unfortunately for the Republicans and the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, this attempt ended up in court, has not yet been enforced, and is now costing even more.

When I wrote about this last year, The Philadephia Inquirer had a good series of articles on the issues but the link I had in my post then is bad. I don’t know why they reorganized the website but I cannot find anything comparable. Fortunately philly.com has posted a good article from the PA Independent on the VoterID issue.

I have no problem with showing ID at the polls. The problem I see is the state limiting what is acceptable as ID and choosing to make obtaining that ID especially difficult.

For those interested in reading more, here are a few recent articles:

VoterID laws Republicans work to supress the vote

VoterID laws Republicans work to supress the vote

Posted on by Jack

Here in Pennsylvania, the Republicans in the state legislature have based a strict voterID law. I say Republicans because the law did not attact a single Democratic vote. The Philadephia Inquirer has had a good series of articles on the difficulties of getting the ID that some people experience and the legal battles.

Many have a hard time but a few are lucky. Often a case highlighted by the paper is given help by the state but a recent one was Jim Cramer’s dad. Yes, it was that Jim Cramer of Mad Money fame.

A recent study by News21 (http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/) rather convincingly shows that the type of voting fraud that would be prevented by VoterID laws is extremely rare. In the study they canvassed voting officials in all 50 states.

They found 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation among 146 million voters – about 1 case in every 15 million. By the way, there were 0 in Pennsylvania. In-person voter impersonation is the only type of voting fraud that would would be prevented by the VoterID laws.

There were about 200 times as many other types of voting fraud but VoterID laws and the Republicans who support them focus on the rare cases because they also happen to disenfranchise large numbers of voters who may side with Democrats.

Why solve real problems when you can stick it to the opposition?