Pennsylvania’s new voter photo ID law heads to the Commonwealth Supreme Court this week, but it’s already stirring controversy inside and outside the state. The law is both a cumbersome burden on citizens’ basic right to vote and a bureaucratic nightmare, critics say.
The law, advocated by Gov. Tom Corbett, requires every Pennsylvania voter to produce a government-issued photo ID at the polling place.
Pennsylvania is only the fifth state in the nation to pass such a law.
Georgia and Indiana have similar laws on the books since 2005 and 2007, respectively. Kansas and Tennessee passed voter photo ID laws in 2011.
Pennsylvania’s State Department says up to 90,000 state voters may not have the proper ID going into this year’s general election.
But the PA American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) counters that up to one million voters risk disenfranchisement because of the law.
The ACLU is challenging the law in Pennsylvania courts. The group lost the first round in Commonwealth Court in August. The state Supreme Court is set to hear an expedited appeal this Thursday, September 13.
Critics say the purpose of the Republican-sponsored law is to suppress Democratic-leaning votes in poorer, urban areas. Voters in those places may not have adequate photo ID going into November’s election, or the wherewithal to get a photo ID, advocates for the poor say.
But an article published by ABCnews.com suggests the law may backfire on the GOP.
Many voters who do not have valid photo IDs are actually rural, elderly voters with limited or difficult access to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDot) offices, the national television network says.
Pennsylvania “has issued about 7,200 non-driver ID cards solely for the purpose of voting, according to the state’s Department of Transportation, which issues the IDs,” ABC News reports. “But for the tens of thousands of voters who, according to conservative estimates, still lack the ID, the transportation, verification and mobilization barriers that stand between them and that voting requirement are significant.”
“Many of those ID-less voters are very old or in nursing homes, and have limited mobility and few ways to get to a driver’s license issuing center,” ABC News reports. “Many others, whether they are homeless, living with their parents or simply not named on a lease or utility account, do not have the required documents to prove their address, she added.
“Most of these people are on the margins of society … but they still clearly have the right to vote.”
ABC explains the rigmarole and bureaucratic hoops awaiting many rural voters in Pennsylvania.
“Eligible voters who don’t have an original copy of their birth certificate have to make two trips to the DMV (PennDOT), which for residents in rural northern Pennsylvania may be up to 30 miles away; once there, wait times average 59 minutes.
“Voters lacking an Social Security card have to truck over the Social Security office, where wait times vary from 15 minutes to an hour, and apply for a replacement card, which takes two to three days to receive in the mail, before making that first trip to the DMV.
“‘It’s long lines and it’s multiple trips, (and) many people … are just becoming demoralized and saying ‘I’m just not going to vote.’“
ABC News notes that the Corbett administration is attempting to waylay fears of a coming nightmare of wholesale disenfranchisement on election day… with mixed results
“Two weeks ago, on August 27, (Pennsylvania) launched a new type ‘safety net’ ID card, which will allow voters who have none of the documentation to prove their identity and residence necessary for the state ID get a photo ID in order to vote. So far nearly 500 of these Department of State voter ID cards have been issued.
“‘It’s a maze to get the IDs,’ said Vic Walczak, the legal director at the ACLU in Pennsylvania. ‘If you go through all of the trouble of navigating the maze, which may include several trips to PennDOT, and then at the end of the day you’re still stuck in the maze, then they let you get this ‘safety net’ Department of State ID.'”
” That safety-net ID is only valid for voting and requires a Social Security number, proof of residence and an affidavit pledging that the voter cannot obtain or afford any other form of ID. Because Pennsylvania offers free birth certificate verification for state natives, few people born in the state will be able to qualify for the ‘safety net’ ID. So far the state has spent about $100,000 issuing free IDs to low-income voters, according to the Pennsylvania State Department.'”
Reg Shuford, executive director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, suggests there’s keen interest outside Pennsylvania over PA’s photo ID law as fears grow such laws may be a growing national trend.
“Pennsylvania is not alone in trying to make it harder for people to vote,” Shuford told me. “We all need to fight back against voter restrictions but, in the meantime, voters can beat these new barriers by learning what they need to do to be able to vote. And the ACLU is here to help. It’s all at http://www.aclupa.org/issues/votingissues/voterid/.”
Meanwhile, within Pennsylvania, criticism of the law is growing as more people learn its complexities and ramifications.
Russell Diesenger, of Reading, Berks County, complained to me via Facebook, “I was at a meeting this morning of the County Democratic Committee where the director of elections answered questions concerning PA’s new voter ID law. She explained that no one will be denied the right to vote on November 6. If the voter does not have an acceptable ID they will be given a provisional ballot. They must provide the necessary documents within a certain time frame (within 6 days, in order for the vote to be counted).
“The voter will be given a receipt for the ballot which will bear an ID number. The ballots will be opened by voter services and judged as to their validity. When they are opened the voter’s name will appear and how they voted (‘secret ballot’??). The voter can use the ID number to go to a website on the internet and check whether their vote was denied!
“Where is the outrage? I do not believe that I have ever seen anything as un-American in my lifetime. I believe that if this is not successfully dealt with before Election Day that the results of this election will be challenged and end up in court. Every state legislator who voted for this travesty should be permanently sent home by their constituents.”
Deborah Olivieri, chief clerk for the Berks County Board of Elections, says voters without the proper ID will first be asked to “go home and get it.”
Should voters not have the proper photo ID, they’ll be given a “provisional ballot.”
The cumbersome provisional ballot, Olivieri says, consists of a “large green envelope with voter’s name, an identification number, the poll worker’s name, and the reason why provisional ballot is necessary.”
A second, “secrecy ballot envelope” is provided within the provisional vote package to conceal the actual vote.
After completing the provisional ballot, prospective voters will have six days to provide the county election office with the required voter ID, or the vote will be discarded, Olivieri says.
Though the names of voters will be on the provisional ballot, Olivieri says election office workers won’t pay attention to the voters’ names, or the candidates for whom they vote. As such, she says, the secrecy of the ballot “shouldn’t be an issue.”
“We really don’t have time to see who’s voting for who,” she says.
This provisional balloting basically is the same procedure used for years in cases of absentee ballots, Olivieri says. “The ballot procedure really hasn’t changed,” she says.
The difference is that no one seems to know how many votes we may be talking about this election, or how much confusion, or how many discarded ballots, may be generated.
A staffer for the Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Elections referred us to Press Secretary Ron Ruman for comment on this story.
Ruman did not return the phone call.
I visited the FDR estate yesterday and am visiting the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building soon.
Since I am required to have photo ID for admission to each of them, I figure I may as well get one to vote. That way I’ll have what I need to board an airplane, cash a check, etc,etc,etc.
“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
How does a person requesting an absentee ballot show his i.d. to vote?