A judge on Tuesday blocked Pennsylvania's divisive voter identification requirement from going into effect on Election Day, delivering a hard-fought victory to Democrats who said it was a ploy to defeat President Barack Obama and other opponents who said it would prevent the elderly and minorities from voting.
Commonwealth
Court Judge Robert Simpson said in his ruling that he was concerned by
the state's stumbling efforts to create a photo ID that is easily
accessible to voters and that he could not rely on the assurances of
government officials at this late date that every voter would be able to
get a valid ID.
If it stands, it is good news for Obama's chances in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's biggest electoral college prizes, unless Republicans and the tea party groups that backed the law find a way to use it to motivate their supporters and possibly independents.
Simpson's ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court,
although state officials weren't ready to say Tuesday whether they
would appeal. He based his decision on guidelines given to him days ago
by the high court justices, and it could easily be the final word on the
law just five weeks before the Nov. 6 election.
Simpson's ruling
will allow the law to go into full effect next year, though he could
still decide later to issue a permanent injunction as part of the
ongoing legal challenge to the law's constitutionality.
Election
workers will still be allowed to ask voters for a valid photo ID, but
people without it can use a regular voting machine in the polling place
and would not have to cast a provisional ballot or prove their identity
to election officials afterward.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs called
it a "win," but they quickly targeted a multimillion-dollar state ad
campaign on TV, radio, billboards and elsewhere about the voter ID
requirement. They said they would ask the state to promptly pull the ads
or alter them to reflect the judge's ruling and suggested that they
would go back to court if the state doesn't cooperate.
"Otherwise
there is a possibility of confusion by voters and folks without ID may
just stay home because they wrongly believe they need ID," said Witold J. Walczak
of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. "It could create
confusion among poll workers and any time you have confusion on
Election Day, it's not good for democracy."
Gov. Tom Corbett, a
Republican who helped champion the law, declined comment on the ruling
and said the state's lawyers were still analyzing it.
The state's
Republican Party chairman, Rob Gleason, said he was disappointed and
stressed that the law is a "common-sense reform" that is supported in
public polling across the political spectrum. In a statement, the Obama
campaign said the decision means that "eligible voters can vote on
Election Day, just like they have in previous elections in the state."
The
plaintiffs included the Homeless Advocacy Project, the League of Women
Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Simpson's
ruling came after listening to two days of testimony about the state's
eleventh-hour efforts to make it easier to get a valid photo ID. He also
heard about long lines and ill-informed clerks at driver's license
centers and identification requirements that made it hard for some
registered voters to get a state-issued photo ID.
The
6-month-old law — among the nation's toughest — has sparked a divisive
debate over voting rights and become a high-profile political issue in
the contest between Obama, a Democrat, and Republican nominee Mitt
Romney, for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes.
It
was already a political lightning rod when a top state Republican
lawmaker boasted to a GOP dinner in June that the ID requirement "is
going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."
Pennsylvania,
traditionally considered a presidential battleground state, is showing a
persistent lead for Obama in independent polls. Pollsters had said
Pennsylvania's identification requirement could mean that fewer people ended up voting and, in the past, lower turnouts have benefited Republicans in Pennsylvania.
But
Democrats have used their opposition to the law as a rallying cry,
turning it into a valuable tool to motivate volunteers and campaign
contributions while other opponents of the law, including labor unions,
good government groups, the NAACP, AARP and the League of Women Voters, hold voter education drives and protest rallies.
The
law was a signature accomplishment of Corbett and Pennsylvania's
Republican-controlled Legislature. Republicans, long suspicious of
ballot-box stuffing in the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia, justified
it as a bulwark against any potential election fraud.
Every
Democratic lawmaker voted against it. Some accused Republicans of using
old-fashioned Jim Crow tactics to steal the White House from Obama.
Other opponents said it would make it harder for young adults,
minorities, the elderly, poor and disabled to vote.
A
wave of state voter identification requirements have been approved in
the past couple years, primarily by Republican-controlled Legislatures.
Earlier
this year, a federal court panel struck down Texas' voter ID law, and a
state court in Wisconsin has blocked its voter ID laws for now. The
Justice Department cleared New Hampshire's voter ID law, and a federal
court is reviewing South Carolina's law.
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