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How the so-called liberal media defeated voter ID
Relentless and accurate media coverage was decisive in bringing about the judicial defeat of Pennsylvania's voter ID law. Mike Turzai offered a critical assist.
How the so-called liberal media defeated voter ID
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Relentless and accurate media coverage was decisive in bringing about the judicial defeat of Pennsylvania's voter ID law. Civil rights and civic groups organized and highlighted how the poor, non-white and elderly would be disproportionately impacted by the controversial measure, which required the presentation of photo identification to vote. But the media, oftentimes hamstrung into he-said-she-said reporting by accusations of “liberal bias,” played a critical role by doing their jobs. And doing them well.
At the Philadelphia Inquirer, reporters Bob Warner and Angela Couloumbis wrote what must have been dozens of stories on the subject. Columnists Annette John-Hall and Monica Yant Kinney chronicled the law's personal stories and political absurdities. Daily News and Inquirer editorials frequently hammered the measure. Dave Davies at WHYY skewered brazen state Republican efforts to willfully misinterpret Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt's report on “voter fraud.” Radio Times had (I believe) three six shows entirely dedicated to the subject.
Reporters covered community education efforts, the twists-and-turns of the legal challenge, the long-long waits and employee confusion at PennDOT, and the state's increasingly comical efforts to make the law seem less burdensome. For the record: the Secretary of State, desperately scrambling before a potent legal challenge, changed requirements for acquiring voter ID four separate times, ultimately only requiring that someone basically walk in and ask for one. The story received extensive coverage in the national media, from The Nation and Daily Show to the Washington Post and New York Times.
We covered it a lot here at City Paper too, including: Governor Tom Corbett hiring a Mitt Romney fundraiser, pharmaceutical lobbyist and school voucher advocate/middleman to assist a voter ID PR campaign; when the number of Pennsylvanians who potentially don't have ID more than doubled to 1,636,168; and when Corbett admitted that he didn't understand the law.
Reporters didn't let conservatives work the refs. They didn't stop at “some say it will suppress votes, others say it will deter voter fraud.” Because they discovered there was no evidence of voter fraud, something that lawyers for the state were forced to concede in court. Instead, journalists reported the fact that the law could disenfranchise voters―and relentlessly. In September alone, The Inquirer appears to have run 41 articles, editorials and columns on the subject.
But no one helped the media focus its attention more than Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, who boasted in June that the law "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania." Turzai's candid statement was the tipping point, unleashing critical coverage and editorials nationwide―and tweets from celebrities like Alec Baldwin.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs, which included elderly African-American women who could not obtain birth certificates because they were born in the Jim Crow South, made for incredibly sympathetic characters.
Conservatives will surely complain of “judicial activism” and, of course, “media bias.” That's what conservatives do when things don't go their way. The media reported the facts straight and followed the story. Such intensive coverage feels like a luxury in an age of massive newsroom downsizing. A lot of issues, like the poor and disabled suffering Governor Corbett's deep cuts to the safety net, gradually slip through the cracks after the political battle is decided.
90% of media is based in Urban enviroments. When media is based on the NASCAR circuit, we will return to the wild, wild west of a John Wayne movie: Where women knew their place (was not in the voting booth).— Cuddles
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