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Corbett "finds" funds for voter ID assistance as bill passes out of House
The governor has pledged to sign the legislation, which is drawing fire from Democrats and civil rights advocates.
Corbett "finds" funds for voter ID assistance as bill passes out of House
By November, Pennsylvania's new voter ID law will be in place. The legislation passed out of the General Assembly today, and Gov. Tom Corbett has said he's eager to sign it into law. So eager, in fact, that in addition to a $1 million budget for non-driver PennDOT identification cards carved out of his painfully austere proposed fiscal 2012 budget, legislators said the governor has found more funds to drive senior citizens to PennDOT to get their newly necessary ID cards. Rep. Mike O'Brien, a Philadelphia Democrat, says the bill will cost Pennsylvania at least $11 million to implement, and is likely to disenfranchise 700,000 Pennsylvanians.
While Rep. Michelle Brownlee, a Philly Democrat, invoked civil rights struggles from the past ("people died for the right to vote"), House Democratic Leader Rep. Frank Dermody was more concerned about the nuts and bolts of the fresh barricade to voting rights. It will cost anywhere from $10 to $150 to get the paperwork necessary for a voter ID, he said, not to mention the cost to the state at a time when deep cuts are being made to education and social spending. "It is not free. This is a stealth poll tax," Dermody said. "The goal of this bill is to suppress voter turnout in Pennsylvania in a presidential election year."
Philly Democratic Rep. Babette Josephs said the allegations of voter fraud she's heard so far have gone mysteriously unreported, which "goes to the credibility of those people" claiming fraud is an issue. "This huge massive voter impersonation scheme, cabal, syndicate that's overwhelming our elections in Pennsylvania, but no one reports it?"
Whether this bill will solve a real problem in Philly and the Commonwealth, we'll never know. Despite claims to the contrary, confirmed reports of fraud are hard to come by in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
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