Thursday, March 15, 2012

Corbett Signs the Voter ID Requirement into Pennsylvania Law

     Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, signed a bill into law that requires all voters in the Commonwealth to present photographic identification in order for their votes to be counted. 

     Voters without ID may cast a provisional ballot and then present an ID within six days for their votes to be counted.  The Commonwealth will make obtaining photo IDs easy.  The law addresses widespread concerns about voter fraud. 

     Democrats opposed the bill, dismissing the concerns as exaggerated.  As someone involved in politics, I can confidently report, as I have posted before, that the problem of voter fraud is much more widespread than the number of cases that are successfully prosecuted.  I was victimized in a Democratic area by voter impersonation during my 2000 state legislative campaign, for example, and I have observed firsthand and become aware of numerous reports of irregularities of all kinds over the years.  Liberal Democrats are likely to run to court, as usual, to block the popular legislation that was publicly debated and duly passed, but a large majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has such laws constitutional.

     Reducing voter fraud prevents the dilution of honest votes, increases confidence in the outcome of elections and in the counting of the votes and restores the benefit of public accountability that popular elections in a representative republic are intended to produce.

2 comments:

Matthew said...

This new law will stop people from being disenfranchised. Republicans once again are the party of inclusion. Democrats AKA the party of NO, hates this law that only will result in equality at the polls.

The Definitive Word said...

Good point, Matthew