Thanks to the hard work of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, we’re getting daily coverage of the voter ID trial in Pennsylvania.
To recap: Pennsylvania pushed through one of the most restrictive voter ID requirements in the country immediately prior to a Presidential election, an ID law that will have a disparate impact centered on one Pennsylvania city: Philadelphia. Governor Corbett then hired a Mitt Romney bundler and GOP operative to educate voters on the law, paid the operative in excess of $200,000 for what appear to be a couple of completely useless web videos. Governor Corbett appointed the wife of his chief of staff to administer Pennsylvania’s elections and she was called to testify yesterday:
Day five of argument in ACLU-PA’s voter ID lawsuit began with testimony from Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele, who expressed confidence in the new law, and concluded with a series of witnesses who called that confidence into question. Most testimony related to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s efforts (past, present, and future) to educate and accommodate the state’s roughly 8 million eligible voters.
Aichele’s demeanor was defiant under questioning from Arnold and Porter attorney David Gersh, rarely giving a direct answer to a question. Instead she questioned his wording – taking particular issue with the use of “a lot” as a quantifier – or used the time to explain some related area of the law, or the staff structure at the Pennsylvania Department of State. Above all, Aichele displayed resolute confidence in the Department of State’s ability to work with PennDOT to educate and inform voters before the November election.
Aichele also remains confident in the Department of State’s estimate that 99 percent of Pennsylvania’s registered voters already possess valid PennDOT ID. This figure, circulated widely during the legislative debate process, has since been discredited by an independent survey (which estimated that same figure at roughly 84 percent) and by the Department of State’s own research (which put the figure at approximately 91 percent). On July 16, Rebecca Oyler testified that she herself computed that figure, in less than 24 hours and with unanswered questions from PennDOT, and stated that she considers that figure incorrect. On the stand, Aichele said she “would disagree” with Oyler, and said the Department of State plans to serve roughly 100 thousand voters. In fact, with an estimated 1.3 million eligible voters disenfranchised (according to both the ACLU-PA’s survey and to the Department of State’s own recent calculations) Aichele said Pennsylvania has budgeted $1 million to provide free Voter IDs – enough for roughly 75,000 ID’s.
With less than 100 days remaining before the election, Aichele’s response to many questions was to plead ignorance. In fact, when Gersh pointed out that PennDOT offices in many Pennsylvania counties are open only once a week – leaving a mere 13 business days for voters in those counties to obtain ID – Aichele expressed ignorance to the amount of time remaining. Asked about the lack of a documented plan for the Department of State to educate voters, Aichele stated that the court did not have such a document because “there is no document.” Asked about reports that PennDOT is requiring people to pay for IDs that are supposed to be free, Aichele said she has heard such reports, but has not verified them. She testified that while other staffers at the Department of State are coordinating with PennDOT, she herself is not working directly with the agency. She was unaware of PennDOT’s predicted August 26 roll-out of the new Department of State ID – and when Gersh pointed out that a voter holding an expired driver’s license is ineligible for a free ID, even if he or she is indigent, Aichele said it was the “first time she’d thought about that,” and thanked Gersh for bringing it to her attention.
Asked about federal funding for voter ID outreach, Aichele pointed out that the Help America Vote Act results in $5 million for Pennsylvania, which can be spent “to make sure every registered voter receives at least one piece of mail” alerting them to the new ID requirements. Asked how this funding would be spent if there were no voter ID law, she answered that it would fund voter registration and turnout efforts.
Governor Corbett admitted he didn’t know what was jn the law he rubber-stamped tp pander to his base, and now the chief state elections officer also admits she does not know what’s in the law. Pennsylvania changed the law, again, only after the ACLU filed their lawsuit to introduce yet another form of special photo voter ID, one that is completely different than the ID card system that has (apparently) failed. They now have two different systems planned, as it stands, today, although that could change at any moment. Pennsylvania is spending 5 million dollars in federal money to promote a voter suppression law, money that Congress intended to go to increase voter participation, not target the city of Philadelphia for voter suppression efforts.
Hopefully, this judge will issue an injunction, but if he doesn’t, let’s be clear on who is responsible for this debacle: Governor Corbett and his election chief. Not poll workers, not voters, not employees at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation all of whom had this mess dropped into their lap. If the law stands and the election is administered incompetently, there will be the usual rush to absolve the people in charge because part of the reason we’ve had an ethical collapse among powerful people and institutions in this country is we never hold anyone at the top accountable. This isn’t Florida 2000. Governor Corbett has had months of warnings on this law. Months. Red lights are flashing all over the place. He’s done nothing, and his chief elections officer, a state official, treated a hearing held in a Pennsylvania state court like it was a joke. To listen to the arrogance of these folks, one would think Republicans were riding high in Pennsylvania. Governor Corbett has a 36% approval rating and Obama is polling well ahead of Mitt Romney in the state. If I were an ambitious Republican pol in Pennsylvania, I think I might make a strategic decision to come out in favor of voting rights.
From Rick Hansen, at Election Law Blog:
I should add that with Pa. Supreme Court Justice Orie temporarily off the court while criminal charges against her are heard, there’s the possibility of a 3-3 split should any decision on the preliminary injunction be appealed to the Pa. Supreme Court.
A tie would leave the trial judge’s decision standing.This is likely the most consequential voter i.d. case in the country for purposes of the presidential election, because Pa. is the only presidential swing state where there is uncertainty as to whether the voter i.d. law will be in place this November.
PeakVT
PA Repukes might have gotten away with some kind of voter surpression law if they had the sense to be somewhat subtle about it. Instead, they were blatant and incompetent.
ETA: PennDOT offices in many Pennsylvania counties are open only once a week. Huh. It’s almost like someone is trying to make people hate government.
Davis X. Machina
PA has an Republican legislature and governor, and an elected judiciary.
Remind me again why we expect to even get a temporary injunction?
Thoughtcrime
If only the ACLU would follow Chris Hedges’ advice.
quannlace
When is a decision expected to come down on this?
********
Let’s not be too doom-and-gloom. Everybody expected the Supreme’s to knock down the Health Care law.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
They weren’t kidding when the guy said:
He was an elected official IIRC. They are no longer even trying to be subtle.
Phil Perspective
Judas Priest!! That dope(Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele) used to be a county commissioner here! What a disaster she is!!
Phil Perspective
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Not only was he an elected official, he is the Speaker of the House, I think(meaning he’s either the Orange Julius or Eric Cantor), in PA.
Hungry Joe
Voter suppression is especially scary because if it happens it won’t be some huge, instantaneous outrage — it’ll be hundreds of thousands of minor events in many thousands of polling places. If, say, 10,000 polling places each reject an average of 30 voters, that’s 300,000 votes. But over the course of a day it’s only about two or three per hour in each polling place. How could you monitor/report such a phenomenon in real time? It’d take days, more like weeks, to even begin to document it.
PurpleGirl
@PeakVT: Feature, not a bug. They’ve saying the government can’t do anything right and are out to prove it.
TenguPhule
Corrected to account for the lack of evil.
Valdivia
I just truly have no words. They really should just throw the law out. It’s like parody levels of incompetence.
feebog
I have been following the ACLU updates daily and I gotta say; I don’t see how any judge in their right mind could fail to issue an injunction. We are talking almost 10% of the state’s voting population being ineligible, and most of those in Phillie. This is aimed directly at poor urban people of color who have no need for a driver’s licsense and have limited means of transportation to jump through the hoops to get one.
rikyrah
Kay,
thanks for this update.
the obviousness of the intent of voter suppression, and their incompetence is breathtaking.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
Anyone want to take bets on whether those counties have an above or below average number of indigent citizens who wouldn’t be able to vote under the new ID law? I didn’t think so.
japa21
I read somewhere recently that several local officials, of both parties, have already said they will not enforce the law, even if it is upheld. Don’t have immediate access to that report, but I’ll look for it. It may even have been here.
Culture of Truth
Hoop Rental Fee is $10. Please bring a major credit card.
pseudonymous in nc
@Culture of Truth:
You also need a Certificate of Hoop-Jumping Eligibility with a raised seal, and the seal is only available during SeaWorld opening hours.
J
typo watch: it’s Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog, not Rick Hansen
jl
@Valdivia:
” parody levels of incompetence. ”
I don’t think it’s incompetence. I think it is intentional malfeasance that they hope to sneak past the courts before the election.
Bokonon
Corbett did nothing to head off this disaster? Of course not. The resulting disaster is a feature, not a bug.
You should see what our clever, partisan Secretary of State is doing here in Colorado. Essentially, he is playing an endless game of three card monte with the state’s election rules, and deliberately sowing confusion (while simultarneously pushing rule changes that will prevent lots of voters from getting ballots). Every so often, he will then appear on right-wing talk radio and wave his hands about “fraud”, just to stir up the faithful and provide political cover for his actions (while obscuring the fact that there has been almost no such fraud in past Colorado elections). Most of this seems to be passing under the radar of the media.
It seems that the Colorado Secretary of State’s plans to continue churning the ballot rules all the way to election day. And the goal seems to be chipping some percentage points off of Colorado’s urban and Hispanic voting numbers … thereby favoring the GOP … OR setting the groundwork for litigation if the Democrats win close elections. The GOP could then challenge the many, many provisional votes that will result from the mess.
Same game as Pennsylvania. Same ultimate goal. Different methods. Fronted by a higher quality of saboteur.
Davis X. Machina
@jl: If they can just tap-dance hard enough before the election, and hold the election, they can rest assured that no court, especially no elected court, will grant a remedy as disruptive and expensive as a do-over, and no lesser remedy will make any difference.
Bokonon
@jl:
Reminds me of the conclusion of old “Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook” routine by Monty Python.
You know, the one where the malefactor is finally arrested and arraigned before a judge for creating a twisted and obscene English to Hungarian phrasebook for tourists, full of deliberately wrong translations, and that causes misunderstandings and fights when it is used.
The phrasebook author smirks and pleads “incompetence.”
Wag
@Bokonon:
As a fellow Coloradan, I have to agree. Scott Gessler is danger to our democracy, and his subtle tactics are in the long run much more dangerous than the blunt approach of PA, FL and TX.
Valdivia
@jl:
I think it can be both no? Which makes it even worse.
jl
@Valdivia: Excellent point. I always forget that these folks deliver twofers on awfulness.
Edit: just replied to yr e note.
Second eit: Only good news is that their incompetence works against their bad intentions. So we have three things to watch for:
Basic malfeasance due to bad intentions
Planned appearance of incompetence to help out getting malfeasance past courts.
Real incompetence at executing items one and two above.
Let’s hope that the third item brings down their vile scheme.
burnspbesq
@pseudonymous in nc:
And only at SeaWorld. Which, despite being in San Diego, is more accessible than the average PennDOT office, because it’s open every day.
burnspbesq
@Bokonon:
I will not buy this Voter ID law. It is scratched.
djork
I am not a lawyer. Can one of you Lionel Hutz-types explain to me how these differing voting laws in each state (which apparently the SoS can change on a whim) don’t violate Equal Protection? TIA.
Valdivia
@jl:
I am hoping for #3!
jayjaybear
@djork: IANALE, but I believe it’s because there is no such thing as a federal election. There are, instead, 50+ state/territory elections.
PopeRatzo
Why aren’t there 500,000 people standing in front of the Pennsylvania State Capital building right now demanding some answers?
This is going to be an election we are going to have to fight for, and by fight, I mean the kind of fighting where your clothes get ruined.
jayjaybear
@PopeRatzo: It’s sad. I had the opportunity to attend an SEIU chapter meeting (my partner is a member…I’m in another public employee union) where it was reported that despite multiple attempts to sign people up to attend a work-day protest in front of the Capitol in Harrisburg, they got all of FIVE volunteers. They didn’t even have enough people to qualify it for a union-paid bus to Harrisburg. And that’s over at least four county offices with hundreds of employees!
Most people seemed to believe that the Voter ID law is a GOOD thing, because illegal aliens and dead people voting, blahblah. And this is among a supposedly liberal constituency (government employees)!
WaterGirl
@pseudonymous in nc: You guys aren’t doing it right. Require a valid voter ID in order to get the state ID that is required to vote.
Sadly, they are nearly that transparent.
it's Darill
Yet another great post Kay. The funny thing is, many of the conservatives that I work with here in PA still don’t know who they’re going to vote for, but they’re convinced that it can’t be that hard to get id to vote.
Nancy Irving
Even if the law is struck down, the GOP gains since, because of all the publicity and attendant confusion, some people w/o ID will stay away from the polls, believing they need ID to vote.