The rationale for the sham that is Pennsylvania’s new Voter ID law is steadily becoming clear and the image is not a pretty one:
The July 24th Huffington Post:
“Defendants in a case against one of the nation's strictest voter ID laws in Pennsylvania …(conceded to plaintiffs) that they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect.”
See Joan McCarter's excellent post for more details on this aspect of the story
And join me below the orange registration obfuscation for the next phase of this fraud.
Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo and the Philadelphia Daily Paper report that Pennsylvania has awarded a nearly $250,000 PR contract to The Bravo Group to “explain” this new law to Pennsylvania voters.
Bravo’s CEO is Chris Bravacos, a GOP lobbyist and close friend of GOP Governor Tom Corbett who has so far bundled $30,000 in contributions for Mitt Romney.
Also on the Bravo Team: Topper Ray (former press aide to President George H.W. Bush);
Jennifer Riley (Bush/Cheney 2005 [sic] campaign);
Matt Crocco (former Gov. Tom Ridge’s campaign);
Sean Connolly (spokesman for two Republican attorneys general);
Otto Banks (Bush White House appointee and consultant to the Republican state committee); (NOTE: Ten percent of Bravo Group’s $249,660 contract will be subcontracted out to Skylar Group LLC, which has been designated as a “Minority Business Enterprise” by the state of Pennsylvania. The Skylar Group is owned by Banks, who served as deputy assistant secretary for economic development in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Bush administration.
and Brad Cary, (voter registration/absentee ballot coordinator Republican State Committee.)
Just the kind of “unbiased” team you want “explaining” a law designed to disenfranchise Democratic voters
When asked why he has cut spending for everything from education to transportation to home health care, Gov. Corbett has routinely responded, ”Because we don’t have the money.” But somehow, he managed to find a quarter of a million dollars for a group of GOP PR hacks to promote a law which, its own backers admit, has absolutely no reason for existing other than to disenfranchise key Democratic voting blocs.
Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R) has said the voter ID law would help deliver the state for Mitt Romney in November. “The fact is that while Pennsylvania Democrats don’t like it to be talked about, there is election fraud,” Turzai spokesman Stephen Miskin told TPM. “Protecting the integrity of an individual vote is the purpose of any election reform."
The only fraud in this whole mess is this law, the people who created it, and the people now being paid to promote it.