Pennsylvania just lost the fight against voter suppression – at least for now.
On Wednesday, Commonwealth Court Judge and Republican Robert Simpson refused to grant an injunction against the state’s GOP-led voter suppression law, which could hand the state over to Mitt Romney’s win column in the general election by disenfranchising hundreds of thousands, but probably closer to a million people, which was exactly its aim, according to State Senate Majority Leader Mike Turzai, who proclaimed:
“Voter ID — which is going to allow governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.”
Simpson is a Republican judge and appears to be toeing the party line in his decision:
Simpson, a Republican, didn’t rule on the full merits of the case, only whether to grant a preliminary injunction stopping it from taking effect. He rejected claims that the law is unconstitutional and ruled that the challenge did not meet the stiff requirements to win an injunction.
“The statute simply gives poll workers another tool to verify that the person voting is who they claim to be,” Simpson said.
Yes, because voter fraud is so damn rampant – NOT. It’s scarcer than UFO sightings and death by lightning, by our numbers.
However, the ACLU is vowing to fight the decision by appealing to the state’s Supreme Court:
“We’re not done, it’s not over,” said Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case for the plaintiffs. “It’s why they make appeals courts.”
It’s a never ending battle, but one that must be fought. Otherwise, the GOP a-holes are gonna run slip-shod over the electorate, and we’ve already endured eight years of that under George W. Bush.
The Stew will keep you posted as this story continues.
About Beth
Strange how here in Washington State we don’t have these “voter fraud” problems even though we have early voting and do it entirely by mail. Oregon State is the same. What the hell is wrong with people in the mid west? Oh, that’s right, the GOP can’t win unless they cheat.
Stating that voter fraud is rare does not make it so. In Baltimore, more people voted in the last election than are living in the city. So over 100% voter turn out comes from where? Dead people? Well, when I stood in line to vote at the poll to vote, one man told me that the line was shorter here than it was at the other poll where he had just voted. Then the following time I voted, I asked if anyone in line had voted earlier elsewhere just for curiosity and a girl said she did because she was registered where she lives now and where she lived before. She said she got instructions to vote both places so she had to go to both. If in our little polling area there are people like this, then when you extrapolate, then there must be an awful lot of people voting twice. You can vote at any polling place and you don’t need to identify yourself. You can do what the guy did who said he was Eric Holder and just say: do you have a >>>> on your list? and then proceed. People voting twice is as bad as people being denied a vote because that double vote will cancel out the real vote of a person who legitimately votes once. People register with out showing citizenship. How many people who are here illegally are voting? ID laws are very much needed.
Franette, the cold, hard statistics prove voter fraud is rare and the specter of it is only being used by Republicans to suppress the vote and tilt the election in their favor because they know they can’t win on their own merits.
As for your experiences? Quite frankly, I have a hard time buying your story — it would be interesting to hear the other side of those “conversations.” But I would certainly hope that you, as a concerned citizen, who obviously has witnessed an extremely rare occurrence — twice, no less — brought these blatantly fraudulent persons to the immediate attention of the election officials at your polling precinct and reported them to your election office for investigation.