Another welcomed setback for voter suppression.
Pennsylvania’s highest court today voted 4-2 to order a lower court to stop a tough new Voter ID law from taking effect in this year’s presidential election if he 1) finds voters cannot get easy access to ID cards or 2) if he thinks voters will be disenfranchised.
In other words, either prove that voters can easily get a new photo ID card or face the nearly certain prospect that the state Supreme Court will block it from going into effect.
That judge, Robert Simpson, who initially rejected a request to stop the divisive law from going forward, must give his opinion back to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by October 2. Then, the high court may make a final decision.
The law, passed by the new Republican majority this year, ignited a furious debate over voting suppression and how it could impact the state’s prized 20 electoral votes for president. Republicans, long suspicious of ballot-box stuffing in the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia, say the law would deter election fraud. But Democrats there’s no evidence of such fraud and charge that Republicans are trying to steal the White House by making it harder for Democratic constituencies — the elderly, disabled, minorities, the poor and college students, as many as one miillion Pennsylvanians — to vote.
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