Democrats on Allegheny County’s election board plan to challenge the state’s new voter ID law as being too expensive and too difficult to implement in time for the November presidential election. That claim will be at the heart of a lawsuit the election board is expected to bring next week, county Executive Rich Fitzgerald said at a news conference Friday. Rather than challenging the constitutionality of the law itself, as the American Civil Liberties Union and others are doing, local officials say the new law is too complicated and expensive to put in place by Nov. 6. Mr. Fitzgerald is one of three members of the election board. The new law requires voters to show government-approved photo identification before they can cast ballots. Mr. Fitzgerald said it would be prohibitive for the county to train the more than 6,500 poll workers who man the county’s 1,300 polling places. He said there would not be enough time to train them in new procedures required to check identifications and allow voters to use provisional ballots if they don’t have proper ID.
More than a dozen Democrats holding Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and state elected offices joined Mr. Fitzgerald in expressing support for their planned suit. The new law contains other major flaws, Mr. Fitzgerald said. The measure is constitutionally questionable and would make it harder for the elderly, minorities and some veterans to vote, he warned. Other opponents of the law used harsher language. State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, called the measure part of a nationwide Republican effort “to steal an election this November.”
Mr. Fitzgerald and county Councilman John DeFazio, D-Shaler, chairman of the election board, and another board member, Councilwoman Heather Heidelbaugh, R-Mt. Lebanon, plan to hold a special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday. Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. DeFazio said they already have decided to bring the suit.
Full Article: Lawsuit planned over Pennsylvania’s voter ID law.