Do you think the Republicans would be pushing voter photo ID laws if they didn’t think it would benefit them politically? I think you can forget about that.
State Treasurer candidate Diana Irey Vaughan may have stolen the show at the Republican State Committee meeting this past weekend, but that doesn’t mean other party members didn’t have anything to say.
In fact, one of them had a lot to say.
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House’s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically.
“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.
“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
I don’t think the voter photo ID requirement is going to allow Romney to win Pennsylvania. but it will definitely cause the president to get many thousand fewer votes. In theory, the Pennsylvania law could change the outcome of the state election and therefore the national election. But it wouldn’t do this by preventing voter fraud. It would do it by preventing registered Democrats from voting. It would “allow” Romney to win even though most registered voters didn’t want him to win.
To get an idea how brainwashed the right is about this, let me tell you a story. When CabinGirl went to vote in our primaries, a Republican poll worker informed her about the new photo ID law. She said that they were asking for photo ID’s for the primary election but they wouldn’t actually be required until the general election in November. When CabinGirl complained about this requirement, the lady said, “We need to do this to keep the terrorists from voting.”
Think about the nitroglycerin of stupid required for someone to make a statement that dumb.
That’s what watching Fox News all day can do to a previously perfectly-good human brain.
