Wednesday, August 15, 2012

In Voter Suppression News, Judge UPHOLDS Pennsylvania Voter ID Law

hat tips-djchefron and RobM

From TPM.com:

TPMMuckraker

Judge Won’t Block Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law

Ryan J. Reilly- August 15, 2012, 9:10 AM

A state judge on Wednesday refused to block Pennsylvania’s controversial voter ID law. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson’s 70-page order ruled that opponents of the law failed to establish “that disenfranchisement was immediate or inevitable.”

Simpson did not rule on the case’s merits, only on whether it could be enjoined. Opponents of the law are expected to appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

“We’re not done, it’s not over,” Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case, told the Associated Press. “It’s why they make appeals courts.”

Simpson ruled that the law “does not expressly disenfranchise or burden any qualified elector or group of electors. The statute simply gives poll workers another tool to verify that the person voting is who they claim to be.”

He said that opponents of the law “did an excellent job of ‘putting a face’ to those burdened by the voter ID requirement.”

“At the end of the day, however, I do not have the luxury of deciding this issued based on my sympathy for the witnesses or my esteem for counsel,” Simpson ruled. “Rather, I must analyze the law, and apply it to evidence of facial unconstitutionality brought forth in the courtroom, tested by our adversarial system.”



So, the people putting the law into effect couldn't come up with ANY voter fraud, yet this law, which can disenfranchise AT LEAST 10 PERCENT OF CURRENT VOTERS, was upheld.

Uh huh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WOW, THIS IS ASHAME!! I can't believe our country is resorting to changing the rules that they set up in THEIR constitution. Looks like Nov, could be another LA Riots situation. It costs money to get these things: copy of your birth certificate, state ID, AND one must have transportation to get to these locations...called GAS and a CAR. What about the poor? Oh, I forgot that was the whole point of this...to suppress the Poor, Black, Hispanic, Young, and Elderly vote so Reps. can possibly win. Wow, I guess the RACIAL divide is ever more present... after all these years. We are going backwards. I guess we have forgotten history because it is repeating itself. God Bless Us!