Margaret Pennington, a 90-year-old Chester County resident and lifelong voter, votes by going to her polling place two blocks away. She also no longer drives and depends on her daughter to take her around. She lives about 25 miles away from the nearest PennDOT office, Pennsylvania鈥檚 equivalent of a DMV office. For Pennington to obtain a photo ID to vote, her daughter would have to close her small retail business and lose a day鈥檚 work.
Pennington is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who will not be able to vote if the state鈥檚 photo ID law remains in place. Many are elderly, some have disabilities, some are low-income; all take seriously their responsibility to vote on Election Day.
Today to ask that the photo ID law be blocked permanently, as it is an unnecessary and unjustifiable burden on the fundamental right to vote guaranteed under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. We will show that not only does the state photo ID law fall far short of the constitutional promise that elections be 鈥渇ree and equal,鈥� but it also fails to pass the common sense test.
While Pennsylvania claims to have educated the public on the photo ID law since its passage some 16 months ago, revealed that the state鈥檚 campaign delivered a confusing message that was incorrect on the law and failed to explain how eligible voters can obtain a free ID. The numbers further underscore the campaign鈥檚 failure. Even though hundreds of thousands of voters lack necessary ID, have been issued for voting purposes to date. It鈥檚 no wonder: Obtaining a valid ID may be challenging for even those who know about the law. A voter must go to one of only 71 PennDOT offices in the entire state. Nine counties do not have any locations, eleven offices are only open only one day a week, and the state doesn鈥檛 provide or mobile vans issuing IDs for the homebound.
One would hope that there is a significant, critically important reason for imperiling a fundamental right. The state has that having a photo ID law will prevent fraud and also instill public confidence in the integrity of our election system. But the state already admitted that of someone attempting to impersonate another voter at the polls, . Further, the state produced no evidence that public confidence in Pennsylvania鈥檚 system was in jeopardy. Instead, the legislature鈥檚 actual motivations were revealed when to members of his party, 鈥淰oter ID . . . is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.鈥� Left unmentioned is the state of public confidence in the integrity of our democracy when such naked, partisan attempts to manipulate the system are revealed. And how our trust further erodes when we hear stories like those of our witnesses 鈥� of eligible, committed voters who will no longer be able to exercise their right to vote.
Putting the important constitutional question aside, Pennsylvania鈥檚 experience also reveals how our public institutions 鈥� from the legislature, to the Department of Transportation, to the Department of State 鈥� have all failed our voters. Each institution decided to take the easy, politically expedient road instead of committing the resources and forethought necessary to ensure that we do not exclude eligible citizens from casting a valid ballot.
Proponents of punitive photo ID laws often like to for such policies as evidence of their legitimacy. There is no denying that the have driver鈥檚 licenses. As such, it鈥檚 easy for us to ignore the very valid reasons why someone may not possess one among a severely limited list of government-issued IDs. It may be even easier to forget that the reasons for lacking a driver鈥檚 license are wholly unrelated to an individual鈥檚 qualification to vote. That鈥檚 why this particular voting restriction is so insidious. The burden of obtaining a valid photo ID under these restrictive laws falls on the most vulnerable and often least visible among us 鈥� including the elderly, low-income, racial minorities, and people with disabilities. Laws like Pennsylvania鈥檚 push our fellow citizens further into the margins by stripping them of their voices.
In the wake of the Supreme Court鈥檚 decision last month striking down a crucial provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas that they will be implementing punitive photo ID laws. This is a pivotal moment in voting rights. Nothing less than the state of our democracy is at stake.
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