A voter ID law has been passed in Pennsylvania. Opponents are trying to get it overturned, but a judge has upheld it. It appears there will be appeals to the State Supreme Court.
A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to stop a tough new voter identification law from going into effect, which Democrats said will suppress votes among President Barack Obama’s supporters.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said he wouldn’t grant an injunction that would have halted the law requiring each voter to show a valid photo ID.
Opponents are expected to file an appeal within a day or two to the state Supreme Court as the Nov. 6 presidential election looms.
Of note from the article.
The original rationale in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature for the law — to prevent election fraud — played little role in the case before Simpson since the state’s lawyers acknowledged that they are “not aware of any incidents of in person voter fraud.”(Bold mine. Ed.) Instead, they insisted that lawmakers properly exercised their latitude to make election-related laws when they chose to require voters to show widely available forms of photo identification.
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed the law in March after every single Democratic lawmaker voted against it.
Using the resources of the state legal offices, they could not find any incidents of in person voter fraud. WE have solved a problem that does not exist. We know there has been fraud with absentee ballots. We know there has been fraud at the voting machines. Legislation to fix those problems? Nonexistent.
I’m sure glad they are the party of small government.
The Democrats sure are working hard to keep the illegal voting bloc in their corner.
Of course, we all know voter intimidation is the preferred method in Pennsylvania. No prosecution for that either.
They have admitted that they have not found evidence of illegals, or anyone, voting illegally that would have been stopped by voter ID requirements. If you can cite some cases where voter fraud was found that would have stopped by ID, please do so. A lot of people have looked for it.
Steve
Voting illegally (without registering, or in place of, say, a dead person) is NOT a “crime.”
Voter REGISTRATION fraud, however IS.
The actual crime is illicit REGISTRATION.
There CAN BE and SHOULD NOT be ANY “actual evidence” of “voter fraud” because states have (ridiculously) never checked for ID.
As a result, voter REGISTRATION fraud is the ONLY criminal act related to voting irregularities that can be prosecuted.
An excellent reference; Votescam: The Stealing of America by James M. Collier & Kenneth F. Collier (http://www.amazon.com/Votescam-Stealing-James-M-Collier/dp/0963416308)
The right to bear arms is a constitutional right. Why are states, etc allowed to require background checks and IDs for concealed carry? Or to outlaw concealed carry, or carrying period?
Has anyone ever used a gun to commit a crime? Do you think we should let convicted felons carry?
Steve
Go ahead and say it, make the same racist argument Bill Maher makes. The liberals attitude towards blacks is simply the modern, still racist, version of white man’s burden.
“So it’s crazy — but obviously Republicans, because they love the country and because the Constitution, they ask themselves what is that thing that maybe black people can’t get to? What do we have that they don’t have? Well, they take the bus because they’re poor. So they don’t have a car. They don’t need a picture ID. You know, Tagg Romney doesn’t have this problem. He has a picture ID.”
Nah, I am just making the argument we should not pass laws if we dont have a problem. There are always unintended consequences and hidden costs. Would you agree that since we have proof of fraud occurring with absentee ballots, we should look to fix that?
Steve
Steve,
That’s sort of how I feel about it. If it’s not actually a problem, why are we making laws to prevent it? I’d rather put energy into an expansion of voting options – easier early voting, more mail-in ballots, extended voting hours and days.
On the other hand, it’s really hard to keep a straight face arguing that having identification is a difficulty. The last time I voted in person I took my driver’s license out without even thinking about it.
On the third hand (yes – I have three!) the purging of voter roles shortly before elections is suspicious and I am not unaware of the history of Jim Crow and other laws aimed at keeping minorities from voting.
DAD, please provide the problem that voter ID is to solve. How many cases of voter fraud that would be preventable by ID have been found?
My good Kim,
It is difficult for me to understand how, in the absence of photo voter ID, how fraud detectable only through the application of photo voter ID would be detected. This non-detection of something not looked for because the means to find it have not been applied has in turn been used to declare that the thing not looked for because the means to find it have not been applied therefore does not exist. Perhaps you can explain how how fraud detectable only through the application of photo voter ID has not been detected by not using photo voter ID.
Curiously, photo ID seems to be a popular and necessary means of looking for fraud only detectable through photo ID in any number of areas of modern political and social life far more trivial than the franchise, which franchise of course is not at all a universal right but rather a restricted privilege, a privilege restricted specifically to only those identities with the right to vote – not to mostly those identities with the right to vote.
Those who advocate photo voter ID are in no way obliged to justify why it is needed; the only thing they need justify is that their attempts to ensure the integrity of the franchise does not prevent people from easily using photo voter ID to do so, and it has already been settled by the Supreme Court that the latter is simply not the case in principle.
So, on the one hand, then,
1) We have every reason to think that the photo ID that is necessary to sort the identities of individuals dissolved within mass populations is nothing but the perfect starting point to prevent the most important type of fraud, political fraud – you are privileged to vote right now only because, and for no reason beyond that you are exactly who you say you are, right here, right now, so prove it beyond any doubt or go away;
2) 1) simply needs no justification at all, period, and moreover, has already been vetted as constitutionally legal by the Supreme Court
3) The unjustifiable claim that 1) does need justification proceeds from the tautological Orwellian absurdity that not looking for something and so not finding it proves that it was never there to begin with.
Perhaps that will help you refine your inquiry.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
LOL. We dont need to prove anything. We just know it exists. Thousands of people are doing it and keeping it quiet. Nota one has slipped and revealed the secret. Most of us can think of multiple ways to catch someone without voter ID.
Steve
“It is difficult for me to understand how, in the absence of photo voter ID, how fraud detectable only through the application of photo voter ID would be detected.” (HMS)
.
.
THAT is undeniably correct. Without looking, NO evidence CAN BE found.
Moreover, there’ve been actual legendary uses of outright voter fraud – in Chicago and TX in the 1960s, where JFK won a landslide with the deceased vote.
Those are NOT “myths or legends,” in the intervening years, numerous people involved have verified those accounts. To his credit, when Nixon was informed about provable Democrat voter fraud in the 1960 election (especially in the form of some late mysterious absentee ballots from Cook County, Chicago) – he refused to go public with it because he felt it would hurt America. . .a quaint notion that few, if ANY of either Party would consider today.
You have to have ID to drive a car, cash a check, get on a plane, get on a friggin’ Greyhound Bus for Pete’s sake, but somehow checking ID to protect the integrity of elections is racist?
You leftists are f’ing insane.
Turns out Philadelphia violated state law with their gun website. Laws are for the little people.
http://www.pagunblog.com/2012/08/15/a-violation-of-pennsylvania-law-by-philadelphia/
Kind of hard to prove voter fraud when no one is required to show an ID (and votes Democrat). In Al Franken’s Senate election, there were more felons that voted illegally than Franken’s margin of victory. Integrity of the vote mean nothing to Dems, winning at any cost is their game. Lie, cheat, steal.
It turns out that attempts to swing an election have been done with absentee ballots, eg, a nursing home turning over its ballots to someone to fill in (although I wonder how many spouses of people with dementia vote twice). Attempts to win elections by taking people from precinct to precinct, claiming to be someone else, have not been widespread (as in, ????). John Fund, interestingly, admitted this, and that Republicans aren’t as interested in pursuing writeins because that method is a preferred method of Republican voters.
I have a CA driver’s license, but I did hear from a friend in TX that she needed more ID besides her passport and her driver’s license from another state to get a TX license. In some states, the requirements are weird. A woman >90 had her birth certificate, but has been widowed twice, and can’t find marriage licenses confirming each change of names.
Voter ID is different from felons voting. There is a question whether we want people who have served their time to become responsible to society, including taking responsibility for voting.
You don’t need ID to get on a plane or Greyhound, although you may be more likely to be searched to get on the plane. I have never been asked for ID to get on Greyhound.
In TX, the gun permit is valid picture ID but student ID is not.
I am OK with picture ID to vote, if all of us are given picture ID by the federal government. I’m not sure why the various states get to enact rules, create ballots, etc that alter national election results.