Bartenders won’t be the only people asking for ID if the state Senate agrees to a controversial change in election law that a Corbett administration appointee stumped for Tuesday.
The state’s top election official, Commonwealth Secretary Carol Aichele, came out in support of a Republican-backed effort to require voters to show photo identification every time they cast a ballot in Pennsylvania. Aichele said the proposed ID requirement would discourage voter fraud.
“We must ensure every citizen entitled to vote can do so, but also prevent anyone not entitled to this right from diluting legal voters’ ballots by casting illegal votes,” she said Tuesday morning in Lancaster at a conference of county election officials.
… The Department of State says 99 percent of eligible Pennsylvania voters already have photo identification, and estimates that providing free IDs to other eligible voters would cost about $1 million.
The liberal-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center contends that the cost would be twice that, plus millions more to educate voters about the change and provide staff to check IDs at polls.
The Pennsylvania ACLU’s legislative director, Andy Hoover, likened the bill to a poll tax, saying: “If you’re an elderly person born in the 1920s in the Deep South, what are the chances of you getting your birth certificate? And if you can get it, it costs money.” He said the bill would disproportionately
Full Article: Pushing for Pa. bill requiring voter ID | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/24/2011.