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Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law Won’t Go Into Effect

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

Since Pennsylvania’s embattled law requiring photo ID at the polls was passed two years ago, it has not been in effect during an election. Officials blocked the photo ID law from going into effect during the 2012 election, after estimates that some 750,000 did not have the required ID. And in January, a trial court struck down the law, calling the burden imposed by the requirement “so difficult as to amount to a denial” of the right to vote.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced he would not appeal the ruling, meaning that trial court’s ruling will stand, and the law remains invalidated. Corbett, however, stood behind the idea of a photo ID requirement, saying that the law needs tweaking and that he hoped to work with the legislature to pass an amended voter ID law.

During trial, officials conceded they could not name a single instance of voter fraud, even though combating voter fraud is the purported justification for voter ID laws. And one Pennsylvania Republican admitted the law was intended to “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania” by suppressing votes.

In the past few weeks, judges in both Wisconsin and Arkansas struck down those states’ voter ID laws.

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