Pennsylvania's Voter ID Law: "A Solution in Search of a Problem"

Pennsylvania has a problem with their voter ID laws, but it's not because of rampant voter fraud as the Republicans want us to believe. In fact, as in most states, everyone agrees that voter fraud is almost non-existent. Yet state legislatures keeping passing laws forcing everyone to get a picture ID or lose their right to vote in the Presidential election this year. This will put the burden mainly on urban dwellers who use public transportation and therefore do not have a driver's license, as well as the elderly who have been voting for years, thank you very much, without a picture ID.

Unlike Florida and Texas, Pennsylvania is not a state covered by Section 5 of the Voters Rights Act which requires preclearance from the Justice Department before voting laws can be changed. Only states that had low voter turnout under 50% in the early 60s were required to follow the preclearance rule. So Pennsylvania will be a test state, and possibly ground-breaking for other "swing" states that might try to suppress the African American vote using Voter ID Laws.

The ACLU is taking the State of Pennsylvania to court, while the Feds are looking into whether the law will impede voting.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Voter ID Fight Heads to Court

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and other groups will spend the next week in Commonwealth Court trying to persuade a judge to grant a swift and immediate injunction. The Republican-controlled legislature passed the law four months ago with the stated purpose of discouraging election fraud.

*snip*

The ACLU is suing on behalf of 10 Pennsylvanians who do not have driver's licenses and who contend that the photo-ID requirement violates the state constitution, depriving them of their right to vote.

In legal papers filed last week, the civil liberties group says that those 10 are the tip of a human iceberg, that as many as a million or more Pennsylvania voters lack the types of photo ID that the law requires.

The ACLU included in its filing a surprising concession from state officials: a written stipulation that the state cannot pinpoint any instance of the kind of voter-impersonation fraud the new law aims to prevent.


The state stipulated that it is "not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania," and has "no direct knowledge of in-person voter fraud elsewhere." State officials also said they would offer no evidence that "in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the photo ID law."

Talking Points Memo: DOJ Investigates ID Law

In a three-page letter sent to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele on Monday, DOJ requested state data on registered voters as well as the state’s list of individuals with driver’s licenses and ID cards.

Additionally, DOJ requested information on the state’s efforts to educate voters about the new law as well as documents and records supporting a March 14 statement from the office of Gov. Tom Corbett (R) which claimed “99 percent of Pennsylvania’s already have acceptable photo IDs.” (The state’s own data did not support that figure.) Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez requested Pennsylvania send the information to federal authorities within 30 days.

Pennsylvania has said that over 750,000 voters lack an adequate form of voter ID, a number greater than President Obama’s margin of victory in the state in 2008. One top Republican even said the voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the state. As TPM reported, the public relations firm contracted to educate the public about the new voter ID law is stacked with Republicans.

Good discussion of this story on Hardball yesterday:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Breaking Tonight ~ Dept. of Justice Sues State of Florida

Unbelievable. Today I wrote a post about Governor Scott of Florida refusing to comply with the Department of Justice request to stop purging and instead trying to sue Homeland Security for more voter records to purge.
And tonight, Think Progress is reporting that the Department of Justice is striking back with a lawsuit of their own. The letter is fascinating and lectures Governor Scott once again about the purpose of the National Voter Registration Act that protects the rights of individual voters over the rights of the states.
Letter Here on Scribd
Also from Talking Points Memo

Last Friday, June 8th, the ACLU also filed a lawsuit against the State of Florida on behalf of some voters mistakenly placed on the purge list. From the Palm Beach Post:

The ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights Under Law and the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges asked a three-judge panel in Tampa to stop Secretary of State Ken Detzner from continuing the scrub until the Justice Department decides whether it is permissible.
. . . Murat Limage, a Haitian-American U.S. Citizen, and Pamela Gomez, who is a Dominican-American Hispanic U.S. Citizen, brought the suit along with Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to working with the Latino/Hispanic community to increase civic participation. Both Gomez and Limage are registered to vote in Hillsborough County.
Haitian-born Murat Limage, one of the plaintiffs in the case, registered to vote after becoming a naturalized citizen two years ago. Limage was one of the more than 2,000 voters who received written notice from local elections officials notifying him that he “may not be a U.S. citizen,” the lawsuit reads.

According to the lawsuit, Limage provided his U.S. passport and other citizenship documents to the Hillsborough County elections office but has not yet received confirmation that he will be allowed to vote.
“When I received the letter saying that they had information that I may not be a citizen, I was concerned that someone was taking away my citizenship,” Limage said in a press release announcing the lawsuit today. “I’m an American which means I can vote and that’s all I want to do.”

DOJ Letter to Florida 6:11:2012

Polls Badgering Barrett One Day Before Wisconsin Recall

Tomorrow Wisconsin votes in the Recall Election of union busting Governor Scott Walker. Right now the polls show it is neck and neck between Walker and his Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, with Walker pulling slightly ahead, unfortunately for beleaguered Badgers. There's all kinds of news coming out of the state, and it's hard to know what to believe at this point. Rumors of Federal Indictments, a Love Child(!), shoes dropping at the last minute - you name it, I've read it in the past week.

I even saw a blog pushing Scott Walker as a possible running mate for Mitt Romney - forbid it God Almighty!!!

I wish all the Wisconsin Democrats the Best of Luck! You have worked so hard and come so far - I hope the people of your state listen and vote Walker out tomorrow!

Wisconsin Recall is an Epic Battle

...Conservatives have elevated Walker, a Republican, to a one-man team of Avengers — Iron Man, the Hulk and Captain America rolled together — as he aggressively takes on craven public workers, growth-choking taxes and out-of-control spending.
To Democrats and unions, their nemesis is all but sprung from Bizarro World, deceptive and in the pocket of greedy oligarchs out to force the working class to its knees.

...former President Clinton, who campaigned for Barrett last week in Milwaukee, argued that Walker's uncompromising style and divisive agenda were a "dead bang loser." His retention, Clinton said, would only embolden those who say, "We're going to stop worrying about the middle class. We don't give a rip whether poor people get to work their way into it. We've got our way now. We've got it all. Divide and conquer works."
This is only the third time in the nation's history that a state has held an election on recalling a governor.

MarketWatch: Wisconsin Recall to Ripple Into November

...if polls are to be believed, it’s Romney and his fellow Republicans who will catch a lift from what’s expected to be a narrow victory for Walker on Tuesday.
. . . analysts say that a win by Walker will embolden fellow Republicans including Romney.
“Republicans might be energized to contest the state more vigorously,” said John McAdams, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
The vote is expected to be close, but Walker has an advantage in polls. The latest, a Marquette Law School poll taken May 23-26, found Walker with 52% to 45% for his challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Bridges, Badgers, Bagpipes and Barrett or What Enthusiasm Gap?

Daily Kos: Story of Scott Walker's Love Child Debunked

David Shuster gives a status update on Walker's Legal Woes:


Current: Regardless of Recall, Walker May Face Indictment

The investigation began in 2010 when Walker served as Milwaukee County executive. Six people have been charged, with accusations ranging from campaigning for Walker on government time to embezzlement. 13 other Walker associates have been given immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony in the case.
This week, Governor Walker acknowledged he has now transferred $160,000 from his campaign accounts to a legal defense fund. Mr. Walker confirmed the money is strictly for his own defense and not for any current or former staff.
Lawyers for Governor Walker recently appeared at the Milwaukee courthouse but refused to say why they were there. The lawyers have also refused to comment on the Governor's status in the investigation.

Esquire: Scott Walker Doesn't Like Him No Rules

Back in April, Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage its midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, was invited by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to come to Washington and discuss in detail the management style he'd brought to said subsidiary — specifically, whether or not he was pretty much selling off the state wholesale to his political financiers. Walker told the committee that he would never, ever engage in such seamy activities as using his office to reward his friends and punish his enemies because, golly whiz, what a thing to think about a person.
Alas for Walker, that videotape subsequently emerged, in which he is shown telling his millionnaire backer Diane Hendricks that, using a "divide and conquer" strategy, he is working toward making Wisconsin a "completely red" state as regards union rights and collective bargaining....
...thanks to some good reporting by the Oshkosh Northwestern, we discover that Walker knew right from the moment he took office that what he was planning to do likely would initiate the process for his recall, so he simply never stopped running for governor. This rather belies his claim that his assault on public employees was dictated simply by the state's dire fiscal problems, and it's no great leap to use this as evidence that what he told the Congress about why he did what he did was, at the very least, disingenuous in the extreme.

Florida ~ Purging Towards Oblivion

More on the Florida Voter List Purge situation:

Sign the ThinkProgress Petition to Stop Rick Scott's Voter Purge

Palm Beach Post: All 67 Florida County Election Supervisors Stop Purging

The Justice Department letter and mistakes that the 67 county elections supervisors have found in the state list make the scrub undoable, said Martin County Elections Supervisor Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections.
"There are just too many variables with this entire process at this time for supervisors to continue," Davis said.
Ron Labasky, the association's general counsel, sent a memo to the 67 supervisors Friday telling them to stop processing the list.
"I recommend that Supervisors of Elections cease any further action until the issues raised by the Department of Justice are resolved between the parties or by a Court," Labasky wrote.
Davis said the effect on supervisors will be "if they've started the process and they do find out that someone is ineligible to vote and they have credible and reliable information to back it up, then they will remove that person from the database. But if they have not had contact with someone on the list, they're stopping at that point."

Old Northeast Patch: Pinellas Halts Voter Verification

Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark announced Friday that she halted processing the list of potential non-citizen voters distributed to all Florida Supervisors of Elections by the Division of Elections.
..."We’ve been told not to proceed with the verification process, and we don’t want to take anyone off the list who could be an eligible voter," Whitlock told Patch. "At this point we are just stopping the process. Not doing anything else with it further."

CBS: Florida Dems Push Back

...a handful of Democratic Florida lawmakers are pushing back, arguing in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott that the process "fails to meet the basic standards of accountability" and that proceeding with it would be "irresponsible."
...In Tuesday's letter, Florida Democratic lawmakers Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Corinne Brown, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Frederica Wilson and Kathy Castor contend that "providing a list of names with questionable validity - created with absolutely no oversight - to county supervisors and asking that they purge their rolls will create chaotic results and further undermine Floridians' confidence in the integrity of our elections."
"Given that this process fails to meet basic standards of accountability, and that the legal authority for automatic removal of registered voters is currently being challenged in both state and federal court, it is irresponsible to proceed so quickly and with so little room for oversight," the letter reads.

Miami Herald: Minorities and Democrats Targets of Purge

The election-year effort, led by a Republican-appointed secretary of state, has increasingly become a focus of concern among Democrats, liberals and civil-liberties groups. They worry that the state could wind up removing lawful voters from the rolls.
...When they register to vote, Hispanics are flocking to the Democratic Party or to the no-party-affiliation label — nicknamed “NPA” — a sign the Republican Party’s hard-line immigration stances are turning off Latinos.
Those potential noncitizens who register as NPAs have been disproportionately flagged in the state’s computer sweep. ... Democrats are the most-likely to be flagged, in large part because their party has the biggest ranks in Florida. They make up 40 percent of the voter rolls and 40 percent of the potential noncitizens.

Florida Purge Halted by Feds

Some good news out of Florida for a change, at least for now. A Federal Judge ruled yesterday that the "24-hour limit" for helping to register someone to vote was unecessarily strict. Then last night, the Department of Justice announced that they are getting more involved with the fight to stop the purging of the voter rolls in Florida by Governor Rick Scott. About time!  The League of Women Voters and even schoolteachers were being threatened with large legal fines, and people who are citizens of this country are being scrubbed from the voter rolls. Something had to be done.

From the Tampa Bay Times

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle told the state it cannot require groups to submit voter registration forms within 48 hours or face $1,000 fines. Nor can the state force those groups to disclose names of volunteers who don't collect the forms, Hinkle ruled.
"The short deadline, coupled with substantial penalties for non-compliance, make voter registration drives a risky business," Hinkle wrote. "If the goal is to discourage voter registration drives and thus make it harder for new voters to register, the 48-hour deadline may succeed."
... Hinkle said voter registration activity is protected speech under the First Amendment. His injunction means that groups will have 10 days to submit voter forms, as they did before the law was changed.
. . . It's a victory for three grass roots groups that brought the lawsuit: Rock the Vote, the Florida Public Interest Group Education Fund and the League of Women Voters of Florida, which suspended all voter registration efforts after the law took effect.
"We are really delighted," said Deirdre MacNab, president of the League of Women Voters. "It knocks out the poor parts of an unreasonable and unconstitutional law. Our volunteers are eager to get back to work."

And the Department of Justice sent Florida a letter serving notice that they are watching the voter purge to see if it is justified (of course it isn't!).

From Naples News:

T. Christian Herren, chief of the department's voting section, sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner that said the state's actions appear to violate two federal voting laws. Florida has used a search of a driver's license database to try to identify non-citizens who are ineligible to vote. Herren's letter said the actions do not comply with part of the federal Voting Rights Act that requires Florida to get a sign-off from the Department of Justice or a federal court for actions that affect five counties with a history of discrimination.
. . . The letter also said Florida could be violating another law known as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which includes standards for how voter lists are maintained. Part of the law requires states to finish the systematic removal of ineligible voters 90 days before a primary or general election --- a deadline that passed May 16 for Florida, which has a primary on Aug. 14. The Department of Justice gave Detzner less than a week to say how the state will deal with the possible legal violations.
. . . "Specifically, please advise whether the state intends to cease the practice discussed above, so that the department can determine what further action, if any, is necessary."

Of course, Florida is protesting that it never meant to suppress the vote. They are just saving the country from voter fraud.

From CNN

In a statement, Chris Cate said the decision to remove names from the list was essential to preventing non-citizens from casting ballots illegally.
"The Department of State has a duty under both state and federal laws to ensure that Florida's voter registration rolls are current and accurate. Therefore, identifying ineligible voters is something we are always doing," Cate wrote.
He added that the action was not meant to prevent minority voters from voting.
"The political party and race of the potential non-citizens is not a factor at all in our process," Cate wrote. "We are only concerned about identifying ineligible voters and making sure they can't cast a ballot."

Yeah, right. *eyeroll*