Left Side of the Aisle #67 - Part 4

Pennsylvania admits claims of "voter fraud" used to support voter ID laws are bogus

There is much more to say about this issue and about the particular case, but I've no time this week. But I did want to tell you this:

I've talked before about attacks on The Commons, on the idea of a community of shared interests and responsibilities, and that one of the forms of those attacks are these voter ID laws and how they are an attack on the right to vote and how they have disproportionate impact on the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly, four groups that when they do vote tend to lean to the liberal side of things.

Supporters defend the laws by going on about alleged "voter fraud." "Don't you care about the integrity of the vote?"

Pennsylvania is one of the states with these insane laws. That law is now under court challenge and a hearing on the suit has been going on. In a stipulation agreement before the hearing, the state of Pennsylvania acknowledged there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”

Additionally, Pennsylvania “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere” or even argue “that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.”

In other words, before the hearing even started, Pennsylvania admitted the claimed basis, the whole claimed purpose, of the law, is totally bogus. And don't you forget it.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php