Voter ID on trial in Pennsylvania: the state abandons any appeal

Voting rights advocates have a victory to celebrate as the state of Pennsylvania has abandoned any appeal from the Commonwealth Court ruling striking down that states voter ID law as unconstitutional. Corbett says he won’t appeal voter ID law decision:

Gov. Tom Corbett put another nail in the coffin of Pennsylvania’s voter identification law on Thursday, announcing he would not appeal a judge’s decision that the law violated the fundamental right to vote.

The Republican governor issued a statement that defended the law, but he also said it needed changes and that he hoped to work with the Legislature on them.

“It is clear that the requirement of photo identification is constitutionally permissible,” he said. “However, the court also made clear that in order for a voter identification law to be found constitutional, changes must be made to address accessibility to photo identifications.”

The centerpiece of the law – a requirement that nearly all of the state’s 8.2 million voters show photo ID at the polls – was declared unconstitutional in January by a Commonwealth Court judge who said it imposed an unreasonable burden on the right to vote and that supporters had failed to demonstrate a need for it.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the law, one of the strictest in the nation, two years ago.

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Democratic state lawmakers unanimously voted against the law and accused the GOP of cynically trying to suppress voting by racial minorities, students and other left-leaning groups. The mandate also drew opposition from the AARP, labor unions and advocates for the poor.

“We commend the governor for not continuing to push this unnecessary and dangerous law that would have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” said Vic Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania legal director, who worked on the case.

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The photo ID requirement was never enforced. The courts kept it on hold pending the resolution of a lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiffs that included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters and Philadelphia’s Homeless Advocacy Project.

Judge Bernard L. McGinley who presided over last year’s 12-day trial, said in his January ruling that despite efforts by state officials to educate voters and provide compliant IDs, “a substantial threat still exists to the franchise of hundreds of thousands of registered electors.”

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McGinley said the special ID card was “fraught with illegalities and dubious authority.” He cited “overwhelming evidence” that hundreds of thousands of qualified voters lack IDs and dismissed the state’s educational and marketing efforts as “largely ineffective and consistently confusing.”

The law cost the government about $6 million for advertising, most of which came from the federal government, as well as nearly $1 million in costs for outside legal counsel, according to the Department of State.

Not to mention all the taxpayer money spent on attorneys fees and court costs defending an unconstitutional law to disenfranchise citizens from their right to vote.