Hurry up and wait in Pennsylvania:
The lawsuit alleges that the state’s voter photo ID law violates the Pennsylvania Constitution by depriving citizens of their most fundamental constitutional right – the right to vote. The plaintiffs are asking the Commonwealth Court to issue an injunction blocking enforcement of the law before November’s election. If the law is not overturned, most of the plaintiffs will be unable to cast ballots in the fall, despite the fact that many of them have voted regularly for decades.
A hearing on the challenge was heard before Judge Robert Simpson July 25-August 2, 2012. On August 15, 2012, Judge Simpson declined to issue a preliminary injunction. We will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
On September 18, 2012, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order returning the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. Judge Robert Simpson has until Oct. 2 to issue a decision.
Overall, we are confronted with an ambitious effort on the part of the General Assembly to bring the new identification procedure into effect within a relatively short timeframe and an implementation process which has by no means been seamless in light of the serious operational constraints faced by the executive branch. Given this state of affairs, we are not satisfied with a mere predictive judgment based primarily on the assurances of government officials, even though we have no doubt they are proceeding in good faith.
Thus, we will return the matter to the Commonwealth Court to make a present assessment of the actual availability of the alternate identification cards on a developed record in light of the experience since the time the cards became available. In this regard, the court is to consider whether the procedures being used for deployment of the 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 7Commonwealth 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 injunction.
Take your time. No rush! So, three things. First, here’s the PA voting rights volunteer group I have written about before, so we have volunteers doing the state’s job, which is nice of them. Second, everyone in any of these voter suppression states should check their registration status, just as a precaution. Third, I am wondering what the various interested parties are doing in PA to pressure the state to accommodate voters. I think county election boards and large state entities (like public universities) have a lot of clout. As an example, Ohio colleges and universities bent over backward to get their students ID’ed and voted in 2006 and again in 2008 when Ohio Republicans started the voter suppression effort here. Courts are just one way to get there. Maybe I’m missing it, but I’d love to see evidence of real pushback in PA outside a courtroom. I know the governor and his cronies and the Romney bundler they hired to do voter education are a lost cause, but we saw county election officials advocate on behalf of voters this year in Florida, and that can be powerful.
Demand accommodations. Ask for administrative rule changes that can go in without a change in the state law. If the state government won’t protect the right to vote and courts are dithering and punting, what about trying county-level action or pressure from mayors and large public entities like universities? Everyone in the state has an interest in NOT having a massive failure of the election system resulting in tens of thousands of provisional ballots, which seems to be where this is headed barring judicial action. Ohio had a dispute over provisional ballots that went on for more than a year. It was litigated in both the state and federal systems. Imagine that times 100 races.
Everyone in the state has an interest in avoiding a sad mess, particularly in local races which can be so close. If these efforts are already being made in PA and I just don’t know about it, I’d love to hear what they’re doing while waiting for the judges.
cmorenc
Let’s hope the Pa Supreme Court’s obviously skeptical unwillingness to accept at face value that the administrative mechanisms are adequate for enough people to obtain the required form of voter ID in time for the November election is an indication that it’s unlikely they’ll uphold enforcing voter ID at least for this November’s election. Clearly, they’ve directed the trial court judge to make determinations of factual turf that is very hostile to being able to support any finding that the available means is timely adequate for more than a small fraction of voters to obtain the necessary IDs. The trial judge himself has, at some point every few years, suffered the burdensome hassle and delay from waiting in long lines to get his driver’s license renewed at PaDOT, for one key thing.
BGinCHI
Kay, naive and simple question, perhaps, but can individual voters (or leagues of voters) sue their state for infringements upon rights? Couldn’t their suit try to compel the state to offer a legal justification for changing the fundamental practice of voting?
catclub
It looks like the situation is pretty good. I read that direction to the lower court as being as close to directing him to approve the injunction as they could get.
Plus, the registration and ID groups are working.
Cheers for all you do, Kay.
Punchy
What makes you think that a state has to have an ID law on the books for election officials to demand ID? My big fear is that their Hail Mary is to so jack up voting on that Tuesday with bullshit regs that voters just leave without casting. Scorch the Booth Technique…
LD50
Obama has a 10-point lead in Pennsylvania, and Romney silently pulled his money from the state a while ago. Massive vote suppression is the only way the GOP will take the state, but hopefully 10% isn’t ‘close enough to steal’.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
No, not that, because courts adjudicate factual issues, they can’t demand answers to general questions. They need a case or controversy, parties who have been harmed, etc.
Kay
@LD50:
There wil be hundreds of local races that will be decided on single digits, or a coupla hundred votes. Each provisional ballot will be in dispute, “in or out?” The Ohio case was (eventually) decided by a federal judge. She did an elaborate factual analysis and determined that many people had been given provisional ballots when they should have been given a first class ballot. The poll workers were honest. They admitted they didn’t know the rules, or didn’t follow the rules.
Rathskeller
Is this voter suppression any kind of a viable issue in PA state congressional races? Or is it viewed as a feature by many voters?
lacp
Everyone in the state has an interest in avoiding a sad mess? I’m not so sure about that. I think a mess is exactly what quite a few folks here are after.
Roger Moore
@LD50:
I think Kay is right on this one. There’s more at stake here than the national election. I’m sure the Pennsylvania Republican Party will view the voter suppression a success if they can keep their solid majority in both houses of the State Legislature.
CarolDuhart2
Something tells me that Republican ID laws are going to create a situation that Republican Fundamentalists dread: a push for a National ID. National ID’s would be good anywhere. A National ID would create a database that could be updated by simply dealing with the Postal Service, Internal Revenue, Army, or Homeland Security. How’s that for Republican paranoia?
Kay
@Roger Moore:
It’s more than that, it’s school board and judges and city councils. The local candidates have a stake in staying out of court. They didn’t seat the judge in Ohio until a year after she was elected. Republicans fought it each step of the way.
LD50
@Rathskeller: My suspicion is that America’s increasingly 3rd-world style elections are being seen as more and more normal. It’s probably now mostly older people who see them as grotesque and antidemocratic. In 20-30 years, among people who grew up with this and who grew up in the partisanship-is-everything environment, this will be seen as SOP.
After all, we’re already at the point where half of the public — Republicans — honestly believe there’s nothing wrong with making it harder for people to vote if they’re likely to vote the ‘wrong’ way.
Argive
I just signed up to volunteer with the Committee of Seventy. They do great work.
BGinCHI
@Kay: So it would have to be a post-facto suit?
If so, that sucks for democracy….
jibeaux
In reading this opinion, it seems to me that this law has completely shot itself in the foot. The law says that a registered voter should be able to get a non-driver ID at no cost by petitioning the DOT with an affidavit that you require photo identification to vote and that the voter does not have proof of ID. Simple, right? But the DOT has stringent requirements for giving out non-voter IDs, because they allow you to board aircraft, for example. Birth certificate with a raised seal, a social security card, and 2 forms of ID showing current residence. The law for getting your non-driver ID doesn’t say anything about having to present all of that. Therefore, the law is not being implemented as written. I’m not as good a lawyer as Kay, but it seems to me that when there’s that much daylight between the law and its implementation, Houston, there’s a problem.
Bokonon
@jibeaux: That daylight and that confusion is a feature, not a bug.
The whole point is that if you don’t win an election outright (either fairly, or by disqualifying enough of the other side’s voters), you can still create an election dispute on demand. Essentially, ANY close election could be subject to litigation over provisional ballots, claims of invalid registrations, cheating, and so on. The GOP clearly feels that this sort of lawsuit baiting and controversy works in their favor.
And if the end results of the lawsuits disfavor the GOP, they can they use the controversy in their favor – to claim the election was stolen from them, and discredit the victor (see – Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken in Minnesota ).
geg6
@Kay:
Step over the border for a few days, kay. There are massive efforts to get people IDs, regardless of what the courts decide in this particular case. With a GOP legislature and governor, this won’t be their last attempt if they lose this time.
I went to one event yesterday, held in Market Square in Pittsburgh. It was sponsored by the NFL Players Association. Steelers were there. The crowds were huge, there were people everywhere trying to make sure people had what was needed to get IDs, and they were taking vans full of people to the PennDOT photo centers to get the non-driving IDs if they had their birth certificates with them. It was a wonderful event that seemed to have served several hundred people. If this is happening in Pittsburgh, where the problem with ID is not quite as acute as it is in Philly, imagine the efforts of the Dem machine in Philly. I hear they have been pulling out all the stops.
Kay
@geg6:
I’m glad. I was hoping you’d weigh in. They’re not getting the media attention Florida got. Maybe because you’re not really a swing state?
JoyfulA
@geg6: We’ve gotten a multitude of appeals to help with this in south-central PA, where my relatively prosperous suburban-to-rural county of 200,000 is, oddly enough, #3 in percentage of no-ID voters (after Philadelphia and a very rural county).
Unfortunately, I’m in a full-leg brace and personally not up to anything at this point, but rest assured there’s plenty of activity here. This county is 60% Republican, and it seems there’d be GOP efforts to get people ID, but I don’t know.
Snarki, child of Loki
It’s dead easy to get a Miskatonic University student ID.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@JoyfulA: Funny, I’m not hearing anything in York County. Lots of emails from OFA to have dinner with Barack and Michelle, lots of emails from the local office to phone bank, but nothing specific to ID.
Can you post a link in a comment where I can sign up?
stratplayer
I’d be happy to embrace voter i.d. requirements on the condition that its proponents agree to measures making suitable identification easy and free to obtain. If the mandated identification is not free it’s a poll tax.
MikeS
The State of PA now has an ID availablefor voting only, that is available that needs less documentation. I’m sure this is what Corbett and his cronies are hoping will keep the law in effect. I don’t know how well it is working but it has been on our local news in the last few weeks. PDF They keep say though that people may have to tell the PennDot employees that it is supposed to be free as not all of them may be up to date on the law! See the PA Dept. of State Official Page for a list of all acceptable IDs.
Also, too we did get a large sized postcard about the law in the mail the other day.
Mike S.
Berks County PA
West of the Cascades
@stratplayer: and implement it over a period of about four years, and – ideally – that there were some sort of a national standard. Even with those conditions, I’m still skeptical that it is necessary — although if the free ID cards could also be used for other official purposes (opening checking accounts, flying on airplanes) then it might be more palatable.
It’s really ironic how the same people who would scream bloody murder if we instituted a National Identification Card are the ones screaming that we need to institute Voter ID Cards immediately. With all of the other hypocritical aspects of the Voter ID issue, this disconnect between the right’s former screaming objection to government intrusiveness when it comes to carrying identification and the new call for IDs for voting has been largely overlooked.
I guess it comes down to who they want to demand present the identification, and when.
Nethead Jay
This should add a little to to the controversy around this law: Sponsor Of Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Defends Romney, Says ‘Lazy’ People Also Shouldn’t Vote
bago
Enkindle This.
JoyfulA
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I don’t have any links. Our township area leader asked a couple of days ago. Last night we got a robocall of sorts where you were to press 1 if you could drive voters to PennDOT, etc., but my husband took the call and he doesn’t remember the source. I think I got an email from the county chair on the topic the other day, but it’s deleted.
Call the York County Democratic Committee Office or the closest OFA office (mine’s in Camp Hill). I’ll keep an eye open for any other information I see.
JoyfulA
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I don’t have any links. Our township area leader asked a couple of days ago. Last night we got a robocall of sorts where you were to press 1 if you could drive voters to PennDOT, etc., but my husband took the call and he doesn’t remember the source. I think I got an email from the county chair on the topic the other day, but it’s deleted.
Call the York County Democratic Committee Office or the closest OFA office (mine’s in Camp Hill). I’ll keep an eye open for any other information I see.
JoyfulA
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I don’t have any links. Our township area leader asked a couple of days ago. Last night we got a robocall of sorts where you were to press 1 if you could drive voters to PennDOT, etc., but my husband took the call and he doesn’t remember the source. I think I got an email from the county chair on the topic the other day, but it’s deleted.
Call the York County Democratic Committee Office or the closest OFA office (mine’s in Camp Hill). I’ll keep an eye open for any other information I see.
JoyfulA
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I don’t have any links. Our township area leader asked a couple of days ago. Last night we got a robocall of sorts where you were to press 1 if you could drive voters to PennDOT, etc., but my husband took the call and he doesn’t remember the source. I think I got an email from the county chair on the topic the other day, but it’s deleted.
Call the York County Democratic Committee Office or the closest OFA office (mine’s in Camp Hill). I’ll keep an eye open for any other information I see.
AHH onna Droid
But don’t forget, Rick Scott does not have a tremendous amount of clout or political capital in Florida. So officials have more room to stand up to him.
The voter purge is going ahead, with a shorter list, and apology letters to the 90% even they admit were identified wrongly as non citizens.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@JoyfulA:
OK, I’ll try that.
OK, I’ll try that.
OK, I’ll try that.
FYWP :-)