|
|
|
No voter-fraud evidence, lots of abortion restrictions and other news from Tom Corbett's Pennsylvania.
Right-wing state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe's willful misreading of "voter fraud" report. And as abortion clinics struggle to comply with new state law, some shut down.
No voter-fraud evidence, lots of abortion restrictions and other news from Tom Corbett's Pennsylvania.
“Oh no they didn't” is Daniel Denvir's weekly blog post on last week's state politics. Philadelphians know precious little about the legislature or governor, but pretending that Tom Corbett doesn't exist will not make him go away. Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir.
Pennsylvania's new law requiring voters to present ID at the polls is, critics say, a solution in search of a problem — and one that could needlessly suppress the votes of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, disproportionately impacting students and the poor, black and elderly (i.e. Democrats).
And so right-wing state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe was thrilled by Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt's new report on voting irregularities, declaring that it “finally confirms what leading Democrat opponents of voter photo ID and those in the mainstream media have been denying all along. … Philadelphia is without question one of our nation’s most infested epicenters for rampant election fraud and corruption.”
The claim by the factuality-challenged, gun-obsessed, gay-bashing and virulently anti-Philadelphia legislator are, as my City Paper colleague Isaiah Thompson reports, absolutely false.
As Thompson writes: “Schmidt's report ― while containing legitimate and potentially serious findings of voting problems in Philadelphia ― confirms virtually nothing in Metcalfe's triumphant statement. And while the report did point to troubling instances of what might be incompetence or corruption by poll workers, the report contains precious little relating to the only problem that voter ID requirements are supposed to solve ― that of voter impersonation ― citing a single case that had been documented prior to Schmidt's investigation.”
WHYY's Dave Davies calmly and methodically asked Schmidt if statement by State Republican Chairman Robert Gleason — that Schmidt had released a “report showing that hundreds of cases of voter fraud had occurred during the past election” — was accurate. Though the statement was decidedly false, Schmidt refused to answer the question. Listen to the recording.
“We expect politicians to exaggerate,” Davies writes. “But when they start making stuff up, they have to be called on it.”
It's laudable that City Commissioners are investigating voting irregularities, and they should take steps to prevent them. But Schmidt's report indicated little actual fraud and only one single and already widely reported case of voter impersonation―the one single type of voter fraud that Voter ID could block. Schmidt failed to resist an entirely predictable effort by state conservatives to co-opt his report into the pro-Voter ID propaganda mill. In doing so, he failed the many Philadelphians who voted for an independent-minded Republican last November.
And here it's worth repeating that while there is no remotely significant evidence of voter impersonation, there is clear evidence that Voter ID will suppress votes: 758,939 registered voters in the state, or nine percent, do not have PennDot IDs. In disproportionately black and poor Philadelphia, 186,830 registered voters, or 18 percent, do not have ID. Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele had previously assured lawmakers that 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the necessary ID.
Listen here to Radio Times' Marty Moss-Coane questioning a Secretary of State spokesperson on this glaring discrepancy.
It's also worth repeating that House Majority Leader Mike Turzai recently boasted (video) that the voter ID requirement is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.
[And if you are one of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who do need an ID: get in touch with the state's Voter ID Coalition, which is doing what the state cannot or will not do to help people get one.]
Pennsylvania's voter ID law continues to receive loads of local and national media attention.
Two weeks ago, I broke the news that the Corbett administration had awarded a $250,000 voter ID PR contract to the Bravo Group, a firm run by Mitt Romney fundraiser and longtime state GOP leader Chris Bravacos. On Friday, Talking Points Memo described how six people working on that contract all have GOP ties.
Also last Friday, The New York Times ran a front page story ahead of this week's Commonwealth Court hearings on the law. It noted that while the Supreme Court in 2008 upheld an Indiana voter ID law, “the case in Pennsylvania is based on the state Constitution, which is more specific than the federal Constitution about the right to vote. The Pennsylvania law also has tighter restrictions than the one in Indiana.”
The Inquirer also had some good reporting last week: elderly Philadelphians, according to the paper's analysis, will be disproportionately impacted by voter ID.
And, it turns out that voter ID legislation is not just racist (see the absurdly cruel plight faced by Puerto Ricans whose birth certificates were all invalidated) and classist and ageist, but also sexist. The Inquirer reports the story of one woman who, because of having changed her name for marriage, had a very hard time securing an ID.
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is clearly feeling the heat ahead of this week's trial. On Friday, state officials announced that new cards only requiring a birth date, Social Security number and two proofs of residency will be made available by the last week of August. This does remove some ammunition from the voter suppression arsenal. But more than anything, the state's panicky and makeshift behavior simply highlights the law's absurdity.
“Clearly the state realizes it has a huge problem on its hands,” according to a statement from the Pennsylvania ACLU and other rights groups challenging the law. “Unfortunately, this isn't the solution. People born in Pennsylvania without birth certificates will still have to make three trips to vote ― two to PennDOT and one to the polls.”
The state has a “huge problem on its hands” in some part because the Philadelphia media has done a fantastic job not only covering voter ID but staying on a fast-moving story. There is nothing more fundamental than the right to vote in a democracy, and local reporters have proven themselves critical watchdogs against efforts to suppress that franchise.
Also: The NAACP is set to rally in Harrisburg tomorrow.
Anti-abortion law shuts down clinics, proves costly burden
The Pittsburgh City Paper published what is perhaps the first comprehensive look at the state's new anti-abortion law, finding that “most providers have only temporary licenses as they grapple with the complicated new rules ― and the massive costs associated with obeying them. Two Pittsburgh facilities have already shut down.”
The Philadelphia Women's Center doesn't know how much the medically unnecessary but politically charged law will ultimately cost them, but estimates that “upgrading the center's HVAC system alone could cost $300,000.”
The law, which went into effect on June 19, reclassified freestanding abortion clinics as "ambulatory surgical facilities" as a means to impose costly new restrictions on them.
"Because providers don't have full licenses yet, it's still an open question about what the impact will be," Susan Frietsche, senior staff attorney with the Women's Law Project told Pittsburgh City Paper. "We're not done yet."
- ActiVman
- adventures
- Arts
- Ask A Man-About-Town
- Award Tour
- Awards
- Bad Idea Factory
- Beer
- Below the Curve
- Bikes
- Booze
- Brian Hickey
- BRT
- Budget
- Budget Fuss
- Business
- Casinos
- City Council
- City Hall
- CouncilMANIC
- CP Abroad
- CP in the Community
- Criminal Justice System
- Day Tripper
- Death and Taxes
- Delaware River
- Design
- DROP
- Drugs
- Dubious Distinction
- Elections
- End of Days
- Environment
- Fashion
- Film Fest
- Financial Meltdown
- FrackTrack
- Free Library
- Gambling
- Gay Stuff
- Get Lit
- Greenstorming
- guns
- Hall Monitor
- Health
- Health Care
- Hello, Kitty
- Holidays
- Ice Cubes
- Iggles
- Immigration
- In Memoriam
- Labor
- Lawsuits
- Letters
- LGBTQ
- Maps
- Marcellus Shale
- Media
- MMA
- Mummers
- Music
- MUST READ
- Mysterious Mysteries
- Nation
- News
- Non Sequitur
- Opinion
- PA politics 2010
- Parking Wars
- Parks and Recreation
- People Send Us This Stuff
- Philadelphia Police
- Philadelphia Union
- Philaphemera
- Philly From Scratch
- philly madness
- Photos
- Poverty
- PPA
- President Obama
- Print Edition
- Prisons
- Protest
- Readers Write
- Real Estate
- Rock Bottom
- Schools
- Science
- Screwing Philly
- SEPTA
- snow
- So Lush
- Soccer
- Sporting Life
- Sports Complex
- State Politicians
- State Politics
- Street Art
- Strike
- Stuff We Like
- Taxes
- Taxi Drivers
- Tech Fetish
- television
- The Budget Crisis
- The City Paper
- The CLOG
- The Human Condition
- The Mayor
- The Phightin Phils
- The World
- Things that make you go hm
- Tinfoil Hats Off
- Under the Table
- Under the Tables
- Urban Development
- Urban Planning
- urban wildlife
- Video Poker
- We Call Shenanigans
- Weather
- Web Junk
- Weekend Omnibus
- White House
- What We've Found
- Women's Issues
- Flyered Up!
- How 'Bout That Weather?
- it's always sunny in philadelphia
- Stu!
- Shopping
- get out
- 10-track mind
- ArtsFlash
- Bloggity
- Bruce Being Bruce
- Colleges
- Comedy
- Gigantic Surprises
- Hello Canary
- Hello Puppy
- errata
- get lost
- Inside The Fishbowl
- Library Closings
- Local Support
- Movies
- Murder
- Night Moves
- Recycling
- radio
- Scientology
- Sex
- Sixers
- Skeeze Police
- State Politicians Screwing Philly
- That's a cool stencil!
- Theater
- Things We See
- This Week
- This Week in Oates
- University City
- WIN
- What we don't heart
- trailer!
- what we heart
- Feeling Guilty
- Askadelphia.
- Broke in Philly
- Contest
- Dance
- Dear Paper Doll
- Do A Good Thing
- Education
- Film Fest Schism
- G20-20 Vision
- Goodbye
- Gossip
- Great American Heroes
- PATCO
- Pearl Jam Week
- Puppy
- Stars of the Photostream
- sustainability
- Lower Merion Webcam-Gate
- The Cycle
- Equality Forum
- Bureaucrat of the Week
- Animals
- ElectionEar
- Photostream
