Pennsylvania Judge Blocks Parts Of Voter ID Law

Pennsylvania Judge Robert Simpson, a Commonwealth (i.e., state) judge to whom the case was remanded by the state Supreme Court with instructions to rethink his earlier ruling in light of potential burdens on duly qualified voters obtaining ID in time, has blocked the Photo ID law from enforcement on Election Day.

Some sites reported earlier today that Judge Simpson permitted poll workers to request ID but not to prevent anyone from voting based on lack of ID. This is no longer the case. Voters may cast regular ballots without ID, based on the judge's ruling that such IDs are, in practical fact, still too difficult to obtain. Judge Simpson stated in his decision that he was "still not convinced" that no legitimate voters would be disenfranchised if the ID law were implemented on Nov. 6.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R, space cadet?) was said to be leaning against appealing the ruling.

Simpson, also a Republican, did not make the decision from whole cloth, but rather based it on guidelines provided by the state Supreme Court on remand. A trial on the merits will follow sometime after the election.

If Pennsylvania counts the votes of all its participating voters, it is likely that Obama will win the state's 20 electoral votes (yes, the state lost one electoral vote in this census). Given that Mr. Obama's major opponent is a Republican, one cannot bet on seeing all the votes cast and counted. I sincerely hope the NAACP stations people at polling places to prevent self-appointed Republican zealots from stopping the votes of African Americans. The R's wouldn't do that? Like hell they wouldn't; remember Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004.

Ryan J. Reilly of TPM, in an otherwise exasperatingly sketchy article, notes that "the state admitted it had no evidence of in-person voter fraud, the type of fraud that voter ID laws would prevent." That is effectively the same as admitting that the law has exclusively partisan and/or racist purposes.

Shame on the whole God-damned Republican Party! How can those bastards sleep nights, having disenfranchised people in at least three presidential elections so far, and showing no signs of backing off their skulduggery in this election? But these Republicans, these "conservatives without conscience" (to use John Dean's phrase and book title), have no intention of letting something as unimportant as an actual electoral majority get in the way of their ascent to power.

The nation cannot continue this way, not only with both parties advocating for the very wealthy, but with one party willing to sink democracy to the bottom of the ocean in its pursuit of raw power and unbounded wealth. Something must change. I hope it can change peacefully, but one way or another, something must change.