Pennsylvania: At voter-ID hearing, justices have tough questions and a surprise | Philadelphia Inquirer
The state Supreme Court’s long-awaited hearing on Pennsylvania’s voter-ID law was going pretty much as expected when Justice Thomas G. Saylor, a white-haired veteran jurist from Somerset County, brought a new issue into the long-running controversy. He’d been reading the law himself, Saylor told chief deputy attorney general John G. Knorr 3d, and he questioned whether the commonwealth was actually following the precise requirements of the voter-ID law passed last March – specifically, a provision that requires the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to provide a nondriver photo ID card to any registered voter who swears that he needs it for voting purposes. To the surprise of many in the standing-room-only courtroom in City Hall, Knorr agreed with the justice.