Son Benjamin, on leave from college until after the November 6 election, had put the Watchdog to work registering voters on a prime corner location at the campus of the University of Philadelphia.
Conversation with a fellow volunteer led him to ‘explain’ to her how the appeal of the Pennsylvania Voter ID law to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was likely unnecessary because the law would soon be reversed by the Federal Courts, as had recently occurred in Texas.
It took the pleasant middle aged woman a few exchanges before she was able to penetrate his thick skull that the Texas ruling was not necessarily relevant to Pennsylvania because voter rights in Texas, unlike here in the Commonwealth, are subject to review by the Justice Department, a holdover from the civil rights day.
She then told him something that does not seem to be commonly reported, that the U. S. Supreme Court has declined to rule on Photo ID laws until after the November election, because it maintains that no one has yet to suffer and thus has standing to file an appeal.
Of course even the Watchdog caught on to how the pubic had been flimflammed by the PA Primary because showing a photo ID was voluntary. Had it been obligatory, a case could have been filed in federal court and the Supreme Court may have overturned the law.
Like with the Lancaster County Convention Center / Marriott Project, it is very difficult not to be outsmarted at the outset by people who make it their business and have vast resources to accomplish their ends.
Nevertheless, there remains some murkiness surrounding this matter. Below is a link to a recent article published on the CNN web site.
“Federal court strikes down Texas voter ID law”
CNN: …Republican Gov. Rick Perry signed the voter ID measure into law last year, but it had yet not gone into effect because the federal Voting Rights Act requires changes in Texas voting laws to be pre-cleared by the U.S. Justice Department…
Attorney General Eric Holder denied the pre-clearance of the measure in March, concluding that Texas failed to show the law will not have “the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race.”…
The panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also said it was ruling only on the Texas law, and not issuing a statement about other state voting laws. It noted the Justice Department had approved a Georgia voter ID law in which the state promised to provide free photo ID cards to citizens who request them…
