Remember the debate over Pennsylvania’s voter ID law? It’s back. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson issued an order today scheduling trial for July 15 in the legal challenge that will decide the law’s ultimate fate. The order also promises to determine by March 21 whether Voter ID requirements should be enforced in the May primary. It was not enforced in the November election, but its long-term prospects remain in question.
Commonwealth Court has blocked a bid by a group that is challenging the state’s controversial Voter ID Law to get the driver’s license information of every Pennsylvanian. The Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project has no legal right to that data, which includes birth dates, addresses and Social Security numbers, the court ruled. Marian K. Schneider, a consulting attorney with the Advancement Project, said the group, which calls itself a “multi-racial civil rights organization,” is considering whether to ask the state Supreme Court to hear the case. Schneider said she sought the information so the Advancement Project could determine how many registered voters don’t have photo identification they would need to cast ballots under the Voter ID Law.
One year after requiring voters to show photo identification, state Republican leaders are set in 2013 to consider changing Pennsylvania’s nearly two-century-old method of awarding its presidential votes. As with voter ID, the proposal is being met with howls of protest from Democrats. Like 48 other states, Pennsylvania uses a winner-take-all system with its electoral votes: when Barack Obama won 52 percent of the state’s vote on Nov. 6 to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent, he bagged all 20 of them. A measure from state Sen. Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, would instead award 18 of them according to the popular vote breakdown and give two others to the state’s overall winner.
State Reps. Robert Godshall (R-Montco) and Seth Grove (R-York) want Pennsylvania to divvy ups its electoral college votes by congressional district. It’s a plan originally pitched by Sen. Dominic Pileggi in 2011 and would have nullified President Obama’s Pa. advantage had it been in effect in 2012. In their co-sponsorship memo, they essentially concede that Pa. is no longer a competitive presidential state. “I believe that the Congressional District Method will increase voter turnout and encourage candidates to campaign in all states rather than just those that are competitive,” the two wrote. “Most importantly, this method of selecting presidential electors will give a stronger voice to voters in all regions of our great Commonwealth.” Read: Republicans are tired of voting for candidates who don’t win Pa.
On Election Day, there were widespread reports of registered voters showing up at polling places and being told they weren’t on the rolls. They were allowed to cast paper ballots, which could be counted once their registration status was verified. A record 27,000 provisional ballots were cast in Philadelphia this November. A new review by City Commissioner Stephanie Singer concludes that 5,000 duly registered citizens didn’t appear on the voter rolls because of a “software malfunction” in the Pennsylvania-run voter registry. But Singer said those provisional votes were cast and counted.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Stephanie Singer recently released a report which attempts to provide details as to why 27 thousand Philadelphians had to cast provisional ballots during this past November election. The report, conducted without the input of City Commissioner Co-chairs Al Schmidt and Anthony Clark, concludes that number “is not out of line with the general trend since provisional ballots were first introduced in 2004,” though details the reasons why provisional ballots were cast and what can be done to help fix the system. (Read the whole report here)
The voter ID law is back in Commonwealth Court this morning, as the Judge in the case checks in with both sides for a status conference. The law’s opponents don’t plan on giving up the fight anytime soon. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson is expected to layout the timeline for the remainder of the case, including the date when a final decision on the voter ID law could be made. “We’re probably looking at a year, year and a half to get to a final decision,” says ACLU Attorney Vic Walczak.
It could be nearly a year before Pennsylvanians know whether they will need to show photo identification at the polls for future elections. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. said Thursday he would decide within the next 10 days on a trial date to determine the constitutionality of the state’s new voter-ID law. But he said he was leaning toward the middle of summer. Given that timetable, Simpson said, he would be in a position to announce a decision by August. He said that he expected the case to again be appealed to the state Supreme Court, and that he wanted to give that court enough time to render its decision on the law’s constitutionality before the November 2013 election. “I think I need to keep them [Supreme Court] in the circle here,” Simpson said.
A Pennsylvania lawmaker’s plan to divvy up electoral votes based on a presidential candidate’s public support may be just the first of many state legislative moves to alter the way the nation chooses a leader. State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, a Republican from Chester, wants to replace the winner-take-all system, which gave President Barack Obama Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, with one that divides them to reflect the proportion of public support for each candidate. His method would have given 12 votes to Obama and eight to Republican Mitt Romney this year.
Less than 24 hours after President Obama took Pennsylvania, state Republican leaders were suggesting massive vote fraud in Philadelphia. “I was told that 90 percent of the precincts in Philadelphia . . . turned out over 90 percent of voters,” said the state House speaker, Sam Smith. “It’s questionable.” At the time, no actual turnout figures were available, but now they are: Of the city’s 1,687 voting divisions, only one reported turnout over 90 percent, and election officials said that was a clear mistake. Two divisions in Southwest Philadelphia’s 40th Ward were both assigned to the same polling location, the Paschallville Library on Woodland Avenue. When poll workers were setting up operations for the day, they mistakenly traded the voting machines preprogrammed for each division.
Republicans misread polls in the run-up to Election Day, depended on glitchy get-out-the-vote technology and failed to get their presidential candidate elected despite the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. They sure know how to draw congressional districts, though. Building upon their 2010 midterm election wins, the GOP had a bulwark Nov. 6 that helped them hold onto the U.S. House even as President Barack Obama cruised to re-election and his party added members to the Senate. In Pennsylvania, U.S. Sen Bob Casey and three fellow Democrats for statewide row offices joined the president in wins.
Voting irregularities in Philadelphia on Election Day have prompted city official to launch an audit. City Controller Alan Butkovitz announced Tuesday afternoon that his office would conduct an audit of the Philadelphia City Commissioners’ handling of the election, in light of the fact that more than 27,000 individuals in the city were forced to vote by provisional ballot on Nov. 6. There are plenty of questions to be answered about how the election went down in Philadelphia. In a letter sent to the city commissioners – a three member board that is responsible for conducting elections in Pennsylvania’s largest city – Butkovitz said there were numerous reported incidents where individuals who had voted in one election district for years were forced to vote with a provisional ballot this year because their names had been removed from the voting rolls. The 27,000 provisional ballots is more than double the number of such ballots cast in 2008 – though turnout was actually slightly lower this time around.
Reports of voter registration glitches and misinformation at the polls during last week’s election are leading some Pennsylvania House Democrats to call for an investigation. Outgoing Rep. Babette Josephs is leading the pack of lawmakers dismayed by reports of the high number of provisional ballots cast in Philadelphia and incorrect signage or information packets about voting laws. Individual polling places deserve closer scrutiny for their handling of the voter ID law, said Josephs, D-Philadelphia.
In the world of partisan politics, one person’s New Black Panther is another’s misinformed poll worker. Reports of voter intimidation, missing names, and other mishaps at the polls on Nov. 6 have sparked a duel in the Capitol over which unresolved Election Day issues should be investigated, and for what. A Democratic Philadelphia legislator wants state and federal prosecutors to investigate what she calls “voting irregularities” reported at polling places around the state.
A Philadelphia election official says more than 27,000 voters had to cast provisional ballots in the city last Tuesday, apparently confirming reports from citizens and election watchdogs that there were an unusual number of glitches at city polling places. City Commissioner Al Schmidt said the 27,100 provisional ballots is roughly twice as many as were cast in the last presidential election. The number is equal to about 4 percent of the ballots cast using electronic voting machines. Provisional ballots are paper ballots used when a voter’s registration status is in doubt. The ballot is sealed and opened once the voter’s status is verified.
President Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in last Tuesday’s presidential election was driven, in part, by the president’s strength in urban areas, where robust support cushioned the incumbent against electoral deficits in rural America. But almost a week after the election, it is now becoming clear just how lopsided President Obama’s victory was in some cities: in dozens of urban precincts, Mitt Romney earned literally zero votes. The Phildadelphia Inquirer reported today that, in 59 precincts in inner-city Philadelphia, the GOP nominee received not a single vote. And according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, nine precincts in Cleveland returned zero Romney votes. At first blush, it seems almost impossible: how, even in some of the most heavily Democratic strongholds in the country, could a major party’s presidential candidate fail to earn even one vote?
A representative from the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition told Roll Call this afternoon that there were reports of “massive confusion” in Pennsylvania, voting-machine problems in Ohio, long lines in southern Virginia, technical problems in Texas and difficulties in New Jersey. Tanya House, one of the attorneys working with the group, said there are reports that voters in Pennsylvania are showing up at the polls and being told they need photo identification, even though a recent court ruling delayed implementation of the commonwealth’s new voter ID law until after Election Day. Voters there were also receiving mailings as late as Friday that referenced the need for a photo ID. “Massive confusion in Pennsylvania,” House said. “The state did not do a good job about informing people that they do not have to show photo ID in order to vote. Poll workers are telling them they do and people are being turned away.”
The names of registered Philadelphia voters are not showing up on voter rolls and poll workers are instructing them to vote using provisional ballots, according to voters and poll workers in West and North Philadelphia. Provisional ballots, if they are counted, are not counted until up to seven days after the election. “We think it’s a real concern,” said a staffer at The Committee of Seventy, which monitors elections in Philadelphia. Voter ID, he says, is “not the central problem in Philadelphia today: [it’s] the messy administration of this election. The phones are just ringing off the hook. We’re fielding calls about people who are not in the polling books.”
With a heavy turnout across the Philadelphia region, election officials were scrambling to instruct voters on the state’s most recent rules on photo identification but were giving out bad information. The Committee of Seventy election watchdog agency said one of the biggest problems in the city and suburban Philadelphia counties was poll workers telling voters that they needed to have voter ID before they could cast ballots. “There’s a lot of honest misunderstanding, and maybe some not so honest,” said Zack Stalberg, the committee’s CEO. “There’s a good deal of confusion.”
Reddit, Twitter, cable news, and the universe at large have been figuratively blowing up today over a YouTube video that appears to show a Pennsylvania voter attempting to select “Barack Obama” on a voting machine and watching in alarm as the machine selects “Mitt Romney” instead. The video is embedded below. The good news is that it’s unlikely this is an indication that anyone, man or machine, is trying to systematically steal the election. That’s partly because these sorts of glitches are actually not that uncommon on voting machines. Which I suppose is also sort of the bad news. I spoke with David Dill, a computer science professor at Stanford and founder of the nonprofit watchdog group Verified Voting, to get his take on the apparent glitch. Dill told me it looks like a classic case of “vote-flipping,” a problem that has cropped up sporadically in U.S. elections since the dawn of voting machines.
With millions of customers in multiple states out of electricity following Superstorm Sandy, VotesPA is asking how electronic voting machines will operate in the event some polling places in Pennsylvania and other states do not have power restored in time for next Tuesday’s Presidential Election. VotePA today announced a warning that, should this become a problem next week, the answer is not to rely on batteries to run voting machines for all or even a substantial part of Election Day. … VotePA Executive Director Marybeth Kuznik says that “officials in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, other states affected by Sandy have been quoted in the press as saying that batteries could potentially run their equipment through the day”
With less than a week to go until voters head to the polls, Pennsylvania officials say they’re working with county governments to ensure that after-effects from Hurricane Sandy won’t stop balloting from beginning Tuesday as planned. The Department of State is assessing what election-related obstacles may have been created by this week’s storm, with a report expected by today or Thursday. Counties that shut down their offices as the storm approached have been authorized to extend their absentee-ballot application deadlines to as late as Thursday evening.
Despite an Oct. 2 ruling by a Pennsylvania judge putting the state’s new voter ID law on hold, a series of misleading ads and announcements is sowing confusion and fear among residents with just two weeks until Election Day, civil rights and union leaders contend. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson ruled that election officials can still ask voters for photo identification but cannot require it. Simpson called the photo ID requirement reasonable and non-discriminatory but said there was not enough time before the Nov. 6 election to ensure that voters who lacked it were not disenfranchised by the change in the law. That critical detail in Simpson’s opinion — that photo ID is not required in this election — has been lost in much of the $5 million advertising campaign by the Pennsylvania Department of State, voters rights advocates charge. On buses, an ad displays a photo ID with “SHOW IT” in big block lettering. In smaller type, it says photo ID is not mandatory. Moreover, state officials acknowledge that it was not until Tuesday, a full two weeks after the court opinion, that the last of the pre-decision billboards announcing photo ID as a requirement came down.
State agencies stumbled in the rollout of Pennsylvania’s voter ID requirements over the last several months. The rollback hasn’t been perfect, either. Some PennDOT driver’s license centers were still offering materials Thursday saying photo identification will be required to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6, despite a ruling to the contrary last week by a Commonwealth Court judge. A bustling center in Penn Hills was still displaying posters for the state’s “Show It” voter education campaign on the suspended voter ID requirement and had a table with information sheets saying “Photo ID required for November 2012 Election.” The center in Harrisburg had that handout, too. Several complaints about out-of-date voter ID materials in other PennDOT centers have been reported to staff at the Pennsylvania Voter ID coalition in Philadelphia, according to Ellen Kaplan, vice president and policy director of the civic group Committee of Seventy. There are also some billboards still indicating IDs will be necessary next month for voting.
The state is back on the air with voter ID advertisements updated to reflect a court order that photo identification will not be required at the election next month. After the Commonwealth Court last week ordered the state to allow voters without photo identification to cast regular ballots next month, the Department of State pulled its TV and other advertisements about the voter ID law. Revised advertisements aired in some markets Tuesday and across the state Wednesday, said Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Department of State. The original TV ad told viewers, “to vote in Pennsylvania on Election Day, you need an acceptable photo ID with a valid expiration date,” but the revised one says: “When voting in Pennsylvania this Election Day, November 6th, you will be asked but not required to show a photo ID.”
Just because opponents of Pennsylvania’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification won a preliminary injunction in court doesn’t mean the issue or the court case is going away. The law itself has not cleared the constitutional challenges before it, and indications from the state Supreme Court are that the law still faces significant legal problems. Meanwhile, the hubbub over the divisive law has awakened new Democratic Party volunteers and prompted the formation of the 175-group Voter ID Coalition. The Democratic Party and the coalition both said Wednesday they will shift their education campaigns to reflect a judge’s day-old decision that voters will not, after all, be required to show photo ID at their polling place. ‘‘The issue remains, the law remains,’’ said Joe Grace, a Philadelphia-based spokesman for the Voter ID Coalition. ‘‘It will have to be dealt with after Election Day, but it is simply not a factor when people go to the polls on Nov. 6 unless there’s confusion.’’
With Pennsylvania’s latest upheaval over what voters must take to the polls next month, the state joins a series of battles across the country where opponents of photo ID laws have seen success for the current election cycle. Challengers have garnered temporary victories against photo ID laws here, as well as in Texas and Wisconsin. Federal officials also halted laws in Mississippi, and likely South Carolina, from going into effect this year. While a weak lawsuit against Tennessee’s tough ID law was tossed aside and a stringent ID card referendum still awaits Minnesota voters, opponents note that the ballot measure in Minnesota only drew support from 52 percent of respondents in a recent poll. “In most cases, the challengers aren’t losing; they’ve generally been successful,” said Keesha Gaskins, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, which has been critical of voter ID laws.
A judge on Tuesday blocked Pennsylvania’s divisive voter identification requirement from going into effect on Election Day, delivering a hard-fought victory to Democrats who said it was a ploy to defeat President Barack Obama and other opponents who said it would prevent the elderly and minorities from voting. The decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson on the law requiring each voter to show a valid photo ID could be appealed to the state Supreme Court. However, Simpson based his decision on guidelines given to him days ago by the high court justices, and it could easily be the final word on the law just five weeks before the Nov. 6 election. Simpson ordered the state not to enforce the photo ID requirement in this year’s presidential election but will allow it to go into full effect next year.
A Pennsylvania judge barred enforcement of the state’s voter photo-identification law until after the November election. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson today said that while election officials can ask for ID on Election Day, voters without ID can still cast ballots and have them counted. Previously the law had given those voters six days after the election to get ID to have their provisional ballots counted. Enacted in March, the law requires voters to present a state-issued ID, or an acceptable alternative such as a military ID, to cast a ballot. Opponents of the law said probable Democratic voters, such as the elderly and the poor, were those least likely to have a valid ID by Election Day.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson had little choice but to issue a partial injunction on Pennsylvania’s voter ID law.
Michael Dimino, constitutional and election law professor at Widener University, said the directives last week from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were tough and clear. “It didn’t give Judge Simpson much room to exercise discretion,” Dimino said. “I don’t think he had very much in the way of options. He could have found that everyone wanting an ID was getting one, but realistically there wasn’t very much for him to do other than enjoin the law from this election.” Last month, the state Supreme Court returned the case to Simpson. Simpson was directed to stop the voter ID law from taking effect in this year’s election if he found that the state had failed to meet the requirement under the law of providing easy access to a photo ID or if he believed it would prevent any registered voter from casting a ballot.