Allegheny County Elections Board Votes To Challenge Voter ID Law
The vote to sue was strictly along party lines.
By a 2-1 vote, Allegheny County’s election board has decided to file a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s new Voter Identification law.
The two Democrats, board chairman John DeFazio and county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, voted to sue, while Republican Heather Heidelbaugh voted against the measure.
The results of the vote were hardly surprising.
Sponsored by Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, the law requires voters to show photo identification before they vote at the polls. After a dry run in the April primary, it is scheduled to take effect for the Nov. 6 general election.
The new Voter ID Act requires each elector who appears to vote to first present proof of identification and requires that local election officials verify the proof of identification.
“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am absolutely opposed to the Voter ID law, but this meeting is about something different entirely,” said DeFazio. “Beyond the unfunded mandates being put on the county for implementation of this law, there are other requirements that are being put on the county that are inappropriate and unlawful.”
In a statement released prior to today’s vote, Allegheny County Council’s Republican Caucus issued a highly critical statement of the Democrat’s challenge.
“It’s a dangerous precedent when special interests and party politics come into play regarding elections,” said councilman Vince Gastgeb, R-Bethel Park. “We have all taken an oath to obey the laws and constitution and I would ask all elected officials to get serious about working on real issues that affect our collective taxpayers.”
The new Voter ID Act requires each elector who appears to vote to first present proof of identification and requires that local election officials verify the proof of identification.
“There is nothing outlandish or outrageous concerning having an ID. It’s hard to believe that having something so fundamental and simply following law (that of having an ID to vote) would cause Allegheny County Democratic officials so much angst,” said councilwoman Jan Rea R-McCandless. “Voter Identification to prevent fraud is a simple process. Allegheny County should be fully prepared to implement this new law.”
Allegheny County controller Chelsea Wagner argued on Friday that the law violates the Pennsylvania Constitution and federal laws guaranteeing free and equal access to the polls while placing an unfunded mandate on county taxpayers.
“No elected official in our democracy should prevent citizens from voting,” Wagner said in a statement on the Allegheny County website. “We will not stand for this in Allegheny County, and we will not stand for this in Pennsylvania—our nation’s birthplace.
Heidelbaugh said the county’s lawsuit would ultimately amount in a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
“The ACLU has already filed such a lawsuit which will be tried shortly in Harrisburg,” she said. “The ACLU has some fine lawyers and they don't need Allegheny County to file another lawsuit over the same issue. Perhaps the individuals promoting this lawsuit could just personally donate to the ACLU to cover the cost of their lawsuit and we can keep precious Allegheny county dollars at home."
Do you agree with Allegheny County's decision to challenge the new voter identification law?
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Jack America
8:59 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
HOW DO THESE DEMOCRATS NO ONE VOTES FOR KEEP WINNING ELECTIONS??
Ed M
11:37 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Where in the the state or federal Constitution does it state having to show ID is a violation of of anything? It doesn't! It prevents voter fraud! That's a good thing! These clowns that are challenging this law are doing nothing more than bogging down the courts with this junk!
Mike
8:43 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Some would say that the clowns proposing the law are bogging down the legislature (and later on the courts) with needless legislation.
If there isn't actual proof of this "widespread voter fraud" that people keep mentioning, then it has not happened.
Ed M
9:21 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Whether or not there is widespread voter fraud is not important. You have to show your ID at a lot of places to prove who you are. Why not at the polls?
Mike
9:53 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012
How can it be irrelevant if that is the reason cited for the legislation?
It isn't currently required, so why make it a requirement?
Why force an issue through the legislature to solve a problem that doesn't exist?
Doesn't that seem to be a waste of government time and money? Isn't that waste one of the things for which conservatism is fighting?
Ed M
10:23 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Why do you have a problem proving who you are so you can exercise your right to vote? You have to prove who you are to get credit, board an airplane and many other things?
Mike
10:38 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012
I don't have a problem showing id to do those things.
I do have a problem with wasting government time and money to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
All the people that support this nonsense need to spend their time fixing actual problems. We've got plenty of those.
A little common sense goes a long way.
Ed M
1:23 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Then why are you complaining about it? I'm confused.
T&B T
7:29 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Voter fraud is a very real problem. It's not imagined.
Mike
8:31 am on Friday, June 22, 2012
Post something to back that up T&B T or it's just hot air.
Mike
2:40 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2012
I'm complaining because people like Daryl Metcalfe are wasting taxpayer dollars by pursuing this needless legislation.
It isn't needed and I support the Allegheny County Election Board's move.
Ed M
6:54 am on Friday, June 22, 2012
So you feel it's OK for someone to commit voter fraud?
Mike
8:33 am on Friday, June 22, 2012
Ed M - It's never ok to commit voter fraud. Fortunately, the statistics show that voter fraud isn't happening.
This is just another political snipe hunt. Make people afraid of an imaginary boogieman and then clog up the legislature and courts so the government can "fix" the imaginary problem.
Don't we have enough government "fixes" in our life.
T&B T
7:28 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2012
Their pushing this for one reason; to facilitate voter fraud. The democrat candidate for president is gonna need all the voter fraud he can get come November.
Mike
8:35 am on Friday, June 22, 2012
T&B T - The polls are saying that the current president doesn't need imaginary voter fraud to keep his job for another term.
Tim
1:55 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
Tisk, tisk...such hostility. First, let's call a spade and spade. The law change isn't about preventing fraud. The chuckleheads in Harrisburg saw other states use voter fraud as an excuse to 'rig' future elections and decided to do the same. It's no different than the reapportionment...let's have the farmers in Lawrence County share the same legislative district with the miners in Cambria County...why? So they can create favorable voting districts and continue their stranglehold on Harrisburg. Voters used to understand the issues and vote for the best candidate...now they buy a candidate/party's :10 soundbite and just keep repeating the nonsense not bothering to find out if it's even true. There was no voter fraud and apparently anyone supporting the voter ID law doesn't understand how the polls work. There's a majority and minority inspector so neither party can perpetrate a fraud...if a signature doesn't look right the voter doesn't vote until the office of elections makes a decision. That's a person from each party checking the signatures when you sign in. That means if the Dems were to something funny...the Rep sitting there would have to be part of it and vice versa. These guys in the capitol are so out of touch they don't even realize it's much easier to get a fake ID than to forge someone's signature.
Mr. politician...instead of writing laws to help keep your job...here's a suggestion...do your job well and let the electorate vote to keep you there.
T&B T
3:30 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
(( Voter fraud proof )) Let's start out with a very recent one - Sundland Park, New Mexico, reported May 17, 2012 - multiple arrests, including the town mayor, on voting fraud charges (also extortion, corruption, etc).
Want something else? How about Troy, N.Y., on Dec. 21, 2011? Four men - all town officials or Democratic Party operatives - were convicted of voting fraud charges. One of the convicts, in his guilty plea, stated that absentee ballot fraud was "commonplace."
How about this statement from Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote that "flagrant examples of voter fraud ... have been documented throughout this Nation's history" (majority opinion, Crawford vs Marion County, 2008).
How about this? ...Rhode Island just passed a Voter ID bill in 2011, primarily as a check to voting fraud. The state has a Democratic controlled state legislature, but the bill passed easily. It was hard to find a solitary legislator who didn't believe voting fraud was a problem.
Mike
3:57 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
How about a link to this proof? Something like this....
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/
Here are two investigative pieces on the myth of voter fraud buy US News
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/04/24/the-myth-of-voter-fraud
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/10/06/the-real-voter-fraud-scandal
Statistics show voter fraud is a rare occurrence in Florida
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fl-voter-fraud-fact-check-20120605,0,4982972.story
Five myths about voter fraud
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-voter-fraud/2011/10/04/gIQAkjoYTL_story.html
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167217/voter-fraud-fraud
Mike
4:00 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
Only 86 people convicted of voter fraud between the years 2002 - 2007, when the Bush administration ran the Justice Department.
Only 86!!
"Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility."
-Ari Berman
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gop-war-on-voting-20110830#ixzz1r5HSfVEp
A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. "Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere," joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. "It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning," the report calculated, "than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."
Ed M
5:31 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
How about the Kennedy election in 1960 when dead people were voting?
T&B T
6:43 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
People are very subjective nowadays and that portends bad for this nation's future; they should be objective but far too fail to have the capacity to do that.