Voter ID law sent back to lower court
Posted: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 5:30 am | Updated: 5:34 am, Wed Sep 19, 2012.
Posted on September 19, 2012
Pennsylvania's highest court tossed the voter ID law back to a lower court judge Tuesday, instructing him to stop the mandate requiring that voters show photo identification if he finds they cannot get easy access to ID cards or if he thinks voters will be disenfranchised.
The 4-2 decision by the state Supreme Court sends the case back to Commonwealth Court judge Robert Simpson, who initially rejected a request to stop the divisive law from going forward. The high court asked for his opinion by Oct. 2.
If Simpson finds there will be no voter disenfranchisement and that IDs are easily obtained, then the law can stand, the Supreme Court said.
The yo-yo drama hasn't posed any significant challenges for the Bucks County Board of Elections, according to its director, Deena Dean.
She said her department is "moving forward as if the law were in place. This is the nature of the election business."
State Rep. Marquerite Quinn, R-143, one of two House Republicans to vote against the legislation that was signed by Gov. Tom Corbett, said the court is "sending mixed messages."
"What I want people to understand is that whether or not they like the law, it still exists right now, so for their vote to be counted they need to act as if this law is going to be upheld," Quinn said. "Don't sit back and think this is going to be overturned. Do what you need to do now."
In Montgomery County, spokesman Frank Custer said local officials are "disappointed" the issue has yet to be decided, only seven weeks before the Nov. 6 presidential election.
"All along the commissioners and the election board have indicated that we're going to do everything we can to ensure that everyone who wants to vote and is eligible to vote will be able to vote," he said. "That attitude and goal has not changed."
The Republican-penned law passed over the objections of Democrats and ignited a furious debate over voting rights, making it a high-profile issue in the contest for the state's prized 20 electoral votes between President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
Republicans, long suspicious of ballot-box stuffing in the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia, say the law would deter election fraud. But Democrats pointed to a blank trail of evidence of such fraud, and charged that Republicans are trying to steal the White House by making it harder for the elderly, disabled, minorities, the poor and college students to vote.
Quinn said she voted against the measure because of the "strict implementation and time frame."
She said photo identification for those residing in a Pennsylvania care facility or a college or university needed a photo, name and expiration date.
"In my research, I didn't find a college or university that had all three," she said
Dean said another significant problem for her office is the delay in ballot certification because of the lawsuit involving Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who wants his name alongside Obama and Romney.
"At this point we can't print any ballot," Dean said. "That's just the nature of the game. I think we've become accustomed to it."
The plaintiffs — eight registered Democrats, plus the Homeless Advocacy Project, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — had sought to block the law from taking effect in this year's election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.
Some of the people who sued over the law had raised the claim that they might be unable to vote because they lacked the necessary documents, such as an official birth record, to get the law's ID card of last resort: A state nondriver photo ID that is subject to federal requirements because it can be used for nonvoting purposes, such as boarding an airplane.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
