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August 2, 2012

DOJ Challenges Pennsylvania Voter ID Law

Elected Republican Official said the Stricter Rules Would Deliver the State to Romney

(World News Service) -- In an effort to determine whether Pennsylvania’s new voter-identification law discriminates against non-whites, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation requiring the state to hand over information on individual voters by late August.

In a letter sent July 23 to Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele, the Justice Department said it needs the information to “properly evaluate Pennsylvania’s compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.” Section 2 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership.

Most of the cases arising under Section 2 since its enactment in 1965 involved challenges to at-large election schemes, but the section's prohibition against discrimination in voting applies nationwide to any voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language-minority group.

According to the letter, the Justice Department also wants the state to provide its voter-registration list, including each registered voter’s full name, address, date of birth, and driver’s license, Social Security, or other identifying numbers, as well as their ethnicity and voting history.

The administration of President Barack Obama has taken the stand that voter-ID laws disenfranchise voters, including minorities who may not have a state-issued ID. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law agrees with the Justice Department.

In 2006, the Brennan Center published a report, Citizens Without Proof: A Survey of Americans' Possession of Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Photo Identification, that found that 25 percent of African-American, voting-age citizens do not have current, government-issued, photo ID, compared with 8 percent of white voting-age citizens without such ID.

Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, however, argues that voter-ID laws increase turnout among African American and Hispanic citizens.

“The position of the Department of Justice and progressive organizations is that voter ID is an attempt to suppress the vote---that minorities, particularly African-Americans, Hispanics and others will be unable to vote, and that this is intentional and that they are trying to keep them out of the polls,” von Spakovsky said on a video recorded in April. “That’s been disproven in the polling place. States that have had photo ID law in place for years, like Georgia and Indiana, have seen an increase in the turnout of minority voters.”

But Mike Turazi, the Pennsylvania House GOP Leader, said the Commonwealth’s photo ID law would deliver Pennsylvania to Mitt Romney, who is expected to be the Republican nominee for president.Turazi made his comments during a speech on June 25 before the  Pennsylvania Republican Steering Committee.

Pennsylvania passed its voter ID law in March.

Thirty states require voters to show identification before casting a ballot.

Pennsylvania, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi and Tennessee have all passed voter ID laws since 2010. So far this year, the Justice Department has blocked both Texas and South Carolina from enacting voter-ID laws. A state judge blocked Wisconsin’s Photo ID law on July 17.

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