The Pennsylvania voter identification law is in the commonwealth court now. The defendants (the commonwealth of Pennsylvania) have made an interesting stipulation (pdf). They have agreed that there have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in the state, and that they have no personal knowledge of any such voter fraud. They have agreed not to introduce any evidence of voter fraud in Pennsylvania or anywhere else, nor will they argue that any voter fraud is likely to occur in future elections.
They are arguing that voting is not a fundamental right and that they do not have to show any rationale for their voter ID law. The reason they think voting is not a fundamental right is because the court upheld a law barring felons from voting. That’s a very weak argument. The reason they don’t think they have to offer any rationale is because the Supreme Court ruled that way in the Indiana case. But the Indiana case was fought under U.S. Constitution rules, and this case is being fought under Pennsylvania Constitution rules, and the PA Constitution is explicit about voting being a fundamental right.
Perhaps their weakest argument is that the law is needed to produce confidence in the electorate about the integrity of the vote. But the Republicans’ lies about voter fraud are what undermined that confidence and the best way to restore confidence would be to tell their wing-nut fanboys what they’ve already stipulated to in court. There is no in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania, nor is there any reason to believe there will be any in the future.
Their case is weak and I expect them to lose.
Does PA have an elected judiciary?
If it does, I expect the state to win. Campaigns cost money.
Yes, we have an elected judiciary. But, I disagree with your conclusion. Ever since the state Supreme Court approved the “middle of the night” legislative pay raise(it was against the law how it was passed .. but the legislature included pay raises for judges .. so guess why they ruled the way they did?) .. people actually voted judges out. Which before that was extremely rare.
Yes, we elect our judges to ten year terms. However, Judge Simpson will turn seventy before his term is up and is not eligible for retention. In other words, he will face no more elections.
What is the party affiliation of the Attorney General and, if the judges are elected, that of the judge?
This looks pretty pro forma to me. The legislators get to keep their issue for another cycle and get to blame it on the judiciary or something. The Attorney General makes his best case but otherwise goes through the motions.
Part of the stipulation states that neither the Attorney General nor the Governor will testify at trial.
The Attorney General is a Republican. The Judge was elected in 2001 as a Republican.
As Boo said plus, at least until January, the AG is a woman at present.
I’m obviously not an expert in civil rights law, but for the sake of argument let’s assume there was no state constitutional challenge to the disenfranchisement law and that a hypothetical state went full blown white supremacist wingnut top to bottom across all government.
Is the federal government only allowed to issue an injunction against the entire state, or is there any mechanism that was ever written into law that would make specific individuals personally liable for violating civil rights? Because, man, it sure would be awesome to see the DoJ come down on some of these governors/AGs/Secretaries of State who are responsible for pulling this shit.
of course there’s no voter fraud. there never was.
it’s a POLL TAX
Why would they agree to such a stipulation? What’s in it for them?
Anyway, even if this obviously egregious law gets shot down, its backers will presumably take it to scotus, where all bets are off.
Also, too, if the PA court does rule in favor of democracy, would that strengthen the case against such laws elsewhere?
What’s in it for them? They don’t have to be humiliated by an inability to produce one shred of evidence to support the need for their law.
My take is that the Commonwealth made a strategic decision to hang its hat entirely on the Crawford case — the case in which the SCOTUS upheld Indiana’s photo ID law. The Commonwealth’s argument goes something like this: Indiana was not able to present evidence of voter impersonation fraud, but that did not stop the Court from concluding that the law was rationally related to a legitimate government interest. So we do not have to show evidence of voter impersonation fraud and do not even have to explain what legitimate interest the law serves, because the Court already concluded that it serves one.
For the reasons I explained on my blog, I think there are several problems with this argument: http://freeandequalpa.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/the-parties-pretrial-briefs/
If the law is stricken, it is not at all clear to me how the Commonwealth could get the case in front of the Supreme Court. The Petitioners only have raised violations of the Pennsylvania Constitution, not any violation of federal law, so I am not sure what the basis would be for SCOTUS jurisdiction — there would be no federal question. The flip side of the coin is that, if the law is upheld, I do not think the Petitioners can seek review in the SCOTUS because they have plead no violation of federal law. In fact, I assume the Petitioners plead the case this way on purpose — in an effort to keep it out of the SCOTUS and so that they could argue Crawford is not controlling.
But, then again, the SCOTUS managed to twist itself into a logical pretzel to come up with a “rationale” for why it had jurisdiction to hear Bush v. Gore, so I suppose anything is possible.
There’s a blizzard of right-wing comments on an AARP page about voter ID. Several different commenters seem to be using the same talking points and phrases. Wonder if they’re getting paid by the word?
Not a fundamental right?
What a terrifying crock of shit.
check pages 22-23 of their brief (pdf).