Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Voter ID Law in Pennsylvania May Be Blocked

   Voter ID laws have been extremely controversial with the upcoming presidential election, but it looks like one of them may be repealed. The voter ID law passed in Pennsylvania, which would have reportedly disenfranchised as many as 750,000 voters, is currently in consideration by the state court. The lower court released a statement, saying,
        "The court is to consider whether the procedures being used for deployment of the [voter ID] cards comport with the requirement of liberal access which the General Assembly attached to the issuance of PennDOT identification cards. If they do not, or if the Commonwealth Court is not still convinced in its predictive judgment that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth’s implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the upcoming election, that court is obliged to enter a preliminary injunctionAccordingly, the order of the Commonwealth Court is VACATED, and the matter is returned to the Commonwealth Court for further proceedings consistent with this Order. The Commonwealth Court is to file its supplemental opinion on or before October 2, 2012."
   To translate, the court will prohibit the voter ID law from being enforced if conclusive evidence is not shown that no voters will be disenfranchised by it. 

1 comment:

George Medan said...

I realize many Democrats are shouting out that this is just a tactic the Republicans are using so that they are able to win the state of Pennsylvania because it will disenfranchise 9% of voters. It does seem a bit out of line considering proposing this sort of regulation months before election day giving very little chance for voters to obtain id's. But what I don't understand is why a voter ID Law is deemed unfair. It allows legally registered voters the right to vote while prohibiting those not to not be able to vote. I feel voting is a privilege not a right and must be respected as such. So be it, the Republicans proposed this law too close to election day, but in a normal case, any legally registered citizen should be able to obtain an id whether it be a license, birth certificate, passport, citizenship etc.