Tomorrow the Pennsylvania State Senate will vote on HB 934, the Voter ID Act passed last summer by the Pennsylvania House. This bill, which aims to address so called voter fraud in the Commonwealth, will in fact make it harder for many Pennsylvanians to access the poll in April and May for the primaries and November for the general elections. According to Keystone Progress:
Supporters of the bill have been unable to show any evidence of voter identity fraud in Pennsylvania, because safeguards against fraudulent voting are already in place in our state. Worse yet, the legislation will cost Pennsylvania taxpayers millions to implement. Long lines at polling places are likely to form, leading other voters to simply give up and go home.
This bill, which models ALEC's founder Paul Weyrich's, Republican strategy for victory does little more than propose a fix to a non existent problem in order to increase Republican chances at the polls.
"They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." (http://www.democraticunderground.com/...)
I do not see how preventing access of citizens to polling locations can help anyone's leverage, and in my opinion such a view makes me want to throw up (nice little Rick Santorum quote to show the sheer stupidity of the view). The fact that the party that claims to support individual liberty is constantly coming up with ways to restrict liberty is an irony all on itself. However, all joking asides, legislation like HB 934 does not create the kind of Commonwealth that Pennsylvanians need, or deserve. While, I fear it is too late to stop this bill from reaching Governor Corbett's desk, bills like these are the very reason Pennsylvania needs to become the 25th state in the Union to offer her citizens the power of legislative referendums.
Other PA Bills that have been modeled after ALEC bills can be found at http://alecexposed.org/...