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.”
The Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law with strict requirements for photo ID before people could cast ballots.
But the courts suspended the law for this election. Most polls workers followed the basic rule, asking voters if they had voter ID. If they did not, they would be handed information on the plan to require identification starting next year.
Stalberg said there numerous polling sites across the region that were handing out old information saying that voters needed to produce identification for the current election.
“There are reports from all over, both the city and the suburbs,” Stalberg said, adding that his organization would try to determine whether the problems was part of any voter suppression effort.
Full Article: Confusion at polls with Voter ID.