The blogger fondly known as Assrocket has decided to opine about Pennsylvania’s voter identification law, which is currently being litigated in our state’s commonwealth court. Assrocket has many ill-informed opinions about the matter, but I want to address this one:
I haven’t read the State’s court filing, but I’m pretty sure the State didn’t “admit they have no evidence of in-person voter fraud.”
Assrocket is wrong. Here is the state’s stipulation that there have been no investigations or prosecutions for in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania, and that they have no direct knowledge of any investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in any other states. In addition, they stipulated that they have no reason to believe that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in the November election. They are asking the court to uphold the law for no other reason than that the legislature has the right to make election laws.
In addition to this, Assrocket is confused by an email the DCCC sent out that claimed that 10% of registered voters in Pennsylvania lack the identification now required to vote. He wants to know where the DCCC got those numbers. They got those numbers from the Republican-run state government. The actual number of Pennsylvania registered voters who lack a Department of Transportation identification is 9.2%. So, when the DCCC said that nearly one-in-ten Pennsylvania voters are at risk of being disenfranchised, they were not just correct, they were using Republican data. The number in Philadelphia County is 18%, meaning nearly one in five Philly voters need to head to the DMV or they’ll be shut out on election day.
If even one registered voter fails to realize that they need to get on a bus and make two transfers to get down to Delaware Avenue to get their voter authorization card, then the election will be distorted by their lack of participation much more than it will be by the entirely absent cases of in-person voter fraud. But you can be sure that, with nearly a fifth of Philadelphia currently unqualified to vote, the impact will be much greater than one vote.
But Assrocket doesn’t care about votes if they are likely to be Democratic votes. He just wants to win.
