Photo ID Law on Trial in Pennsylvania: What's at Stake for Our Democracy

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/16-1



Margaret Pennington, a 90-year-old Chester County resident and lifelong voter, votes by going to her polling place two blocks away. She also no longer drives and depends on her daughter to take her around. She lives about 25 miles away from the nearest PennDOT office, Pennsylvania's equivalent of a DMV office. For Pennington to obtain a photo ID to vote, her daughter would have to close her small retail business and lose a day's work.

Pennington is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who will not be able to vote if the state's photo ID law remains in place. Many are elderly, some have disabilities, some are low-income; all take seriously their responsibility to vote on Election Day.

Today the ACLU is back in court to ask that the photo ID law be blocked permanently, as it is an unnecessary and unjustifiable burden on the fundamental right to vote guaranteed under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. We will show that not only does the state photo ID law fall far short of the constitutional promise that elections be "free and equal," but it also fails to pass the common sense test.

While Pennsylvania claims to have educated the public on the photo ID law since its passage some 16 months ago, our expert analysis revealed that the state's campaign delivered a confusing message that was incorrect on the law and failed to explain how eligible voters can obtain a free ID. The numbers further underscore the campaign's failure. Even though hundreds of thousands of voters lack necessary ID, only about 17,000 IDs have been issued for voting purposes to date. It's no wonder: Obtaining a valid ID may be challenging for even those who know about the law. A voter must go to one of only 71 PennDOT offices in the entire state. Nine counties do not have any locations, eleven offices are only open only one day a week, and the state doesn't provide or mobile vans issuing IDs for the homebound.